V.

When the Houses of Parliament, at the east end of the town, were destroyed by fire in 1824, the Legislature assembled for several sessions in the General Hospital.

The neighbourhood hereabout had an open, unoccupied look in 1822. In a Weekly Register of the 25th of April of that year, we have an account of the presentation of a set of colours to a militia battalion, mustered for the purpose on the road near the Hospital. "Tuesday, the 23rd instant," the Register reports, "being the anniversary of St. George, on which it has been appointed to celebrate His Majesty's birthday, George IV., [instead of the 4th of June, the fête of the late King,] the East and West Regiments, with Capt. Button's Troop of Cavalry, which are attached to the North York Regiment, on the right, were formed in line at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, on the road in front of the Government House, and a Guard of Honour, consisting of 100 rank and file from each regiment, with officers and sergeants in proportion, under the command of Lieut.-Col. FitzGibbon, were formed at a short distance in front of the centre, as the representatives of the militia of the Province, in order to receive the rich and beautiful Colours which His Majesty has been graciously pleased to command should be prepared for the late incorporated Battalion, as an honourable testimony of the high sense which His Majesty has been pleased to entertain of the zeal and gallantry of the militia of Upper Canada."

The Register then proceeds: "At 12 o'clock, a Royal Salute was fired from the Garrison, and the Lieutenant-Governor with his staff having arrived on the ground, proceeded to review the widely-extended line; after which, taking his station in front of the whole, the band struck up the nation anthem of 'God save the King.' His Excellency then dismounted, and accompanied by his staff, on foot, approached the Guard of Honour, so near as to be distinctly heard by the men; when, uncovering himself, and taking one of the Colours in his hand, in the most dignified and graceful manner, he presented them to the proper officer, with the following address:—"Soldiers! I have great satisfaction in presenting you, as the representatives of the late incorporated Battalion, with these Colours—a distinguished mark of His Majesty's approbation. They will be to you a proud memorial of the past, and a rallying-point around which you will gather with alacrity and confidence, should your active services be required hereafter by your King and Country.'—His Excellency having remounted, the Guard of Honour marched with band playing and Colours flying, from right to left, in front of the whole line, and then proceeded to lodge their Colours at the Government House."

"The day was raw and cold," it is added, "and the ground being very wet and uneven, the men could neither form nor march with that precision they would otherwise have exhibited. We were very much pleased, however, with the soldier-like appearance of the Guard of Honour, and we were particularly struck by the new uniform of the officers of the West York, as being particularly well-adapted for the kind of warfare incident to a thickly-wooded country. Even at a short distance it would be difficult to distinguish the gray coat or jacket from the bole of a tree. There was a very full attendance on the field; and it was peculiarly gratifying to observe so much satisfaction on all sides. The Colours, which are very elegant, are inscribed with the word Niagara, to commemorate the services rendered by the Incorporated Battalion on that frontier; and we doubt not that the proud distinction which attends these banners will always serve to excite the most animating recollections, whenever it shall be necessary for them to wave over the heads of our Canadian Heroes, actually formed in battle-array against the invaders of our Country. At 2 o'clock His Excellency held a Levee, and in the evening a splendid Ball at the Government House concluded the ceremonies and rejoicings of the day." The Lieut. Governor on this occasion was Sir Peregrine Maitland, of whom fully hereafter.

The building on King Street known as "Government House" was originally the private residence of Chief Justice Elmsley. For many years after its purchase by the Government it was still styled "Elmsley House." As at Quebec, the correspondence of the Governor-in-Chief was dated from the "Château St. Louis," or the "Castle of St. Louis," so here, that of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Western Province was long dated from "Elmsley House." Mr. Elmsley was a brother of the celebrated classical critic and editor, Peter Elmsley, of Oxford. We shall have occasion frequently to speak of him.

On the left, opposite Government House, was a very broken piece of ground, denominated "Russell Square;" afterwards, through the instrumentality of Sir John Colborne, converted into a site for an educational Institution. Sir John Colborne, on his arrival in Upper Canada, was fresh from the Governorship of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. During his administration there he had revived a decayed Public School, at present known as Elizabeth College. Being of opinion that the new country to which he had been transferred was not ripe for a University on the scale contemplated in a royal Charter which had been procured, he addressed himself to the establishment of an institution which should meet the immediate educational wants of the community.

Inasmuch as in the School which resulted—or "Minor College" as it was long popularly called—we have a transcript, more or less close, of the institution which Sir John Colborne had been so recently engaged in reviving, we add two or three particulars in regard to the latter, which may have, with some, a certain degree of interest, by virtue of the accidental but evident relation existing between the two institutions. From a paper in Brayley's Graphic and Historical Illustrator (1834), we gather that Elizabeth College, Guernsey, was originally called the "School of Queen Elizabeth," as having been founded under Letters Patent from that sovereign in 1563, to be a "Grammar-school in which the youth of the Island (juventus) may be better instructed in good learning and virtue." The temple or church of the suppressed Order of Gray Friars (Friars minors or Cordeliers), with its immediate precincts, was assigned for its "use," together with "eighty quarters of wheat rent," accruing from lands in different parts of the Island, which had been given to the friars for dispensations, masses, obits, &c. By the statutes of 1563 the school was divided into six classes; and books and exercises were appointed respectively for each, the scholars to be admitted being required "to read perfectly, and to recite an approved catechism of the Christian religion by heart."

In all the six classes the Latin and Greek languages were the primary objects of instruction; but the Statutes permitted the master, at his discretion, "to add something of his own;" and even "to concede something for writing, singing, arithmetic, and a little play." For more than two centuries the school proved of little public utility. In 1799 there was one pupil on the establishment. In 1816 there were no scholars. From that date to 1824 the number fluctuated from 15 to 29. In 1823, Sir John Colborne appointed a committee to investigate all the circumstances connected with the school, and to ascertain the best mode of assuring its future permanent efficiency and prosperity, without perverting the intention of the foundress. The end of all this was a new building (figured in Brayley) at a cost of £14,754 2s. 3d.; the foundation-stone being laid by Sir John in 1826. On August the 20th, 1829, the revived institution was publicly opened, with one hundred and twenty pupils. "On that day," we are told, "the Bailiff and Jurats of the Island, with General Ross, the Lieutenant-Governor [Sir John Colborne was now in Canada], his staff, and the public authorities, headed by a procession consisting of the Principal, Vice-Principal, and other masters and tutors of the school (together with the scholars), repaired to St. Peter's Church, where prayers were read by the Dean, Dr. Durand, and Te Deum and other anthems were sung. They then returned to the College, where, in the spacious Examination Hall, a crowded assembly were addressed respectively by the Bailiff and President-director [Daniel de Lisle Brock, Esq.], Colonel de Havilland, the Vice-President, and the Rev. G. Proctor, B.D., the new Principal, on the antiquity, objects, apparent prospects, and future efficiency of the institution."

Under the new system the work of education was carried on by a Principal, Vice-Principal, a First and Second Classical Master, a Mathematical Master, a Master and Assistant of the Lower School, a Commercial Master, two French Masters and an Assistant, a Master of Drawing and Surveying, besides extra Masters for the German, Italian, and Spanish languages, and for Music, Dancing, and Fencing. The course of instruction for the day scholars, and those on the foundation, included Divinity, History, Geography, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, English, Mathematics, Arithmetic, and Writing, at a charge in the Upper School of £3 per quarter; and in the Lower or Preparatory School, of £1 per quarter; for Drawing and Surveying, 15s. per quarter. The terms for private scholars (including all College dues and subscriptions for exhibitions and prizes of medals, &c.) varied from £60 annually with the Principal, to £46 annually with the First Classical Teacher.

The exhibitions in the revived institution were, first, one of £30 per annum for four years, founded by the Governor of Guernsey in 1826, to the best Classical scholar, a native of the Bailiwick, or son of a native; secondly, four for four years, of, at least, £20 per annum, founded by subscription in 1826, to the best scholars, severally, in Divinity, Classics, Mathematics, and Modern Languages; thirdly, one for four years, of £20 per annum, founded in 1827 by Admiral Sir James Saumarez, to the best Theological and Classical scholar; fourthly, one of £20 per annum, for four years, from 1830, to the best Classical scholar, given by Sir John Colborne in 1828. There were also two, from the Lower to the Upper School, of £6 per annum, for one year or more, founded by the Directors in 1829.

The foregoing details will, as we have said, be of some interest, especially to Canadians who have received from the institution founded by Sir John Colborne in Russell Square an important part of their early training. "Whatever makes the past, the distant and the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." So moralized Dr. Johnson amidst the ruins of Iona. On this principle, the points of agreement and difference between the educational type and antitype is this instance, will be acknowledged to be curious.

Another link of association between Guernsey and Upper Canada exists in the now familiar name "Sarnia," which is the old classical name of Guernsey, given by Sir John Colborne to a township on the St. Clair river, in memory of his former government.

Those who desire to trace the career of Upper Canada College ab ovo, will be thankful for the following advertisements. The first is from the Loyalist of May 2, 1829. "Minor College. Sealed tenders for erecting a School House and four dwelling-houses will be received on the first Monday of June next. Plans, elevations and specifications may be seen after the 12th instant, on application to the Hon. Geo. Markland, from whom further information will be received. Editors throughout the Province are requested to insert this notice until the first Monday in June, and forward their accounts for the same to the office of the Loyalist, York. York, 1st May, 1829."

The second advertisement is from the Upper Canada Gazette of Dec. 17, 1829. "Upper Canada College, established at York. Visitor, the Lieutenant-Governor for the time being. This College will open after the approaching Christmas Vacation, on Monday the 8th of January, 1830, under the conduct of the Masters appointed at Oxford by the Vice Chancellor and other electors, in July last. Principal, the Rev, J. H. Harris, D.D., late Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Classical Department: Vice Principal, The Rev. T. Phillips, D.D., of Queen's College, Cambridge. First Classical Master: The Rev. Charles Mathews, M.A., of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Second Classical Master: The Rev. W. Boulton, B.A., of Queen's College, Oxford. Mathematical Department: The Rev. Charles Dade, M.A., Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, and late Mathematical Master at Elizabeth College. French, Mr. J. P. De la Haye. English, Writing and Arithmetic, Mr. G. A. Barber and Mr. J. Padfield. Drawing Master, Mr. Drury. (Then follow terms, &c.) Signed: G. H. Markland, Secretary to the Board of Education. York, Upper Canada, Dec. 2, 1829."

After Russell Square on the left, came an undulating green field; near the middle of it was a barn of rural aspect, cased-in with upright, unplaned boards. The field was at one time a kind of Campus Martius for a troop of amateur cavalry, who were instructed in their evolutions and in the use of the broadsword, by a veteran, Capt. Midford, the Goodwin of the day, at York.

Nothing of note presented itself until after we arrived at the roadway which is now known as Bay Street, with the exception, perhaps, of two small rectangular edifices of red brick with bright tin roofs, dropped, as it were, one at the south-west, the other at the north-west, angle of the intersection of King and York Streets. The former was the office of the Manager of the Clergy Reserve Lands; the latter, that of the Provincial Secretary and Registrar. They are noticeable simply as being specimens, in solid material, of a kind of minute cottage that for a certain period was in fashion in York and its neighbourhood; little square boxes, one storey in height, and without basement; looking as if, by the aid of a ring at the apex of the four sided roof, they might, with no great difficulty, be lifted up, like the hutch provided for Gulliver by his nurse Glumdalclitch, and carried bodily away.

As we pass eastward of Bay Street, the memory comes back of Franco Rossi, the earliest scientific confectioner of York, who had on the south side, near here, a depot, ever fragrant and ambrosial. In his specialities he was a superior workman. From him were procured the fashionable bridecakes of the day; as also the noyeau, parfait-amour, and other liqueurs, set out for visitors on New Year's Day. Rossi was the first to import hither good objects of art: fine copies of the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere, the Perseus of Canova, with other classical groups and figures sculptured in Florentine alabaster, were disseminated by him in the community.

Rossi is the Italian referred to by the author of "Cyril Thornton" in his "Men and Manners in America," where speaking of York, visited by him in 1832, he says: "In passing through the streets I was rather surprised to observe an affiche intimating that ice-creams were to be had within. The weather being hot, I entered, and found the master of the establishment to be an Italian. I never ate better ice at Grange's"—some fashionable resort in London, we suppose. The outward signs of civilization at York must have been meagre when a chance visitor recorded his surprise at finding ice-creams procurable in such a place.

Great enthusiasm, we remember, was created, far and near, by certain panes of plate glass with brass divisions between them, which, at a period a little later than Cyril Thornton's (Captain Hamilton's) visit, suddenly ornamented the windows of Mr. Beckett's Chemical Laboratory, close by Rossi's. Even Mrs. Jameson, in her book of "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles," referring to the shop fronts of King Street, pronounces, in a naive English watering-place kind of tone, "that of the apothecary" to be "worthy of Regent Street in its appearance."

A little farther on, still on the southern side, was the first place of public worship of the Wesleyan Methodists. It was a long, low, wooden building, running north and south, and placed a little way back from the street. Its dimensions in the first instance, as we have been informed by Mr. Petch, who was engaged in its erection, were 40 by 40 feet. It was then enlarged to 40 by 60 feet. In the gable end towards the street were two doors, one for each sex. Within, the custom obtained of dividing the men from the women; the former sitting on the right hand of one entering the building; the latter on the left.

This separation of the sexes in places of public worship was an oriental custom, still retained among Jews. It also existed, down to a recent date, in some English Churches. Among articles of inquiry sent down from a Diocesan to churchwardens, we have seen the query: "Do men and women sit together indifferently and promiscuously? or, as the fashion was of old, do men sit together on one side of the church, and women upon the other?" In English Churches the usage was the opposite of that indicated above: the north side, that is, the left on entering, was the place of the women; and the south, that of the men.

In 1688, we have Sir George Wheler, in his "Account of the Churches of the Primitive Christians," speaking of this custom, which he says prevails also "in the Greek Church to this day:" he adds that it "seems not only very decent, but nowadays, since wickedness so much abounds, highly necessary; for the general mixture," he continues, "of men and women in the Latin Church is notoriously scandalous; and little less," he says, "is their sitting together in the same pews in our London churches."

The Wesleyan chapel in King Street ceased to be used in 1833. It was converted afterwards for a time into a "Theatre Royal."

Jordan Street preserves one of the names of Mr. Jordan Post, owner of the whole frontage extending from Bay Street to Yonge Street. The name of his wife is preserved in "Melinda Street," which traverses his lot, or rather block, from east to west, south of King Street. Two of his daughters bore respectively the unusual names of Sophronia and Desdemona. Mr. Post was a tall New-Englander of grave address. He was, moreover, a clockmaker by trade, and always wore spectacles. From the formal cut of his apparel and hair, he was, quite erroneously, sometimes supposed to be of the Mennonist or Quaker persuasion.

So early as 1802, Mr. Post is advertising in the York paper. In the Oracle of Sept. 18, 1802, he announces a temporary absence from the town. "Jordan Post, watchmaker, requests all those who left watches with him to be repaired, to call at Mr. Beman's and receive them by paying for the repairs. He intends returning to York in a few months. Sept. 11, 1802." In the close of the same year, he puts forth the general notice: "Jordan Post, Clock and Watchmaker, informs the public that he now carries on the above business in all its branches, at the upper end of Duke Street. He has a complete assortment of watch furniture. Clocks and watches repaired on the shortest notice, and most reasonable terms, together with every article in the gold and silver line. N. B.—He will purchase old brass. Dec 11, 1802."

Besides the block described above, Mr. Post had acquired other valuable properties in York, as will appear by an advertisement in the Weekly Register of Jan. 19, 1826, from which also it will be seen that he at one time contemplated a gift to the town of one hundred feet frontage and two hundred feet of depth, for the purpose of a second Public Market. "Town Lots for Sale. To be sold by Auction on the Premises, on Wednesday the first day of February next, Four Town Lots on King Street, west of George Street. Also, to be leased at the same time to the highest bidder, for twenty-one years, subject to such conditions as will then be produced. Six Lots on the west side of Yonge Street, and Twenty on Market Street. The Subscriber has reserved a Lot of Ground of One Hundred Feet front, by Two Hundred Feet in the rear, on George Street, for a Market Place, to be given for that purpose. He will likewise lease Ten Lots in front of said intended Market. A plan of the Lots may be seen and further particulars known, by application to the Subscriber. Jordan Post. York, Jan. 4, 1826."

VI.

On the opposite side, still passing on towards the east, was the Jail. This was a squat unpainted wooden building, with hipped roof, concealed from persons passing in the street by a tall cedar stockade, such as those which we see surrounding a Hudson's Bay post or a military wood-yard. At the outer entrance hung a billet of wood suspended by a chain, communicating with a bell within; and occasionally Mr. Parker, the custodian of the place, was summoned, through its instrumentality, by persons not there on legitimate business. We have a recollection of a clever youth, an immediate descendant of the great commentator on British Law, and afterwards himself distinguished at the Upper Canadian bar, who was severely handled by Mr. Parker's son, on being caught in the act of pulling at this billet, with the secret intention of running away after the exploit.

The English Criminal Code, as it was at the beginning of the century, having been introduced with all its enormities, public hangings were frequent at an early period in the new Province. A shocking scene is described as taking place at an execution in front of the old Jail at York. The condemned refuses to mount the scaffold. On this, the moral-suasion efforts of the sheriff amount to the ridiculous, were not the occasion so seriously tragic. In aid of the sheriff, the officiating chaplain steps more than once up the plank set from the cart to the scaffold, to show the facility of the act, and to induce the man to mount in like manner; the condemned demurs, and openly remarks on the obvious difference in the two cases. At last the noose is adjusted to the neck of the wretched culprit, where he stands. The cart is withdrawn, and a deliberate strangling ensues.

In a certain existing account of steps taken in 1811 to remedy the dilapidated and comfortless condition of the Jail, we get a glimpse of York, commercially and otherwise, at that date. In April, 1811, the sheriff, Beikie, reports to the magistrates at Quarter Sessions "that the sills of the east cells of the Jail of the Home District are completely rotten; that the ceilings in the debtors' rooms are insufficient; and that he cannot think himself safe, should necessity oblige him to confine any persons in said cells or debtors' rooms."

An order is given in May to make the necessary repairs; but certain spike-nails are wanted of a kind not to be had at the local dealers in hardware. The chairman is consequently directed to "apply to His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, that he will be pleased to direct that the spike-nails be furnished from the King's stores, as there are not any of the description required to be purchased at York." A memorandum follows to the effect that on the communication of this necessity to His Excellency, "the Lieutenant-Governor ordered that the Clerk of the Peace do apply for the spike-nails officially in the name of the Court: which he did," the memorandum adds, "on the 8th of May, 1811, and received an answer on the day following, that an order had been issued that day for 1500 spike-nails, for the repair of the Home District Jail: the nails," it is subjoined, "were received by carpenter Leach in the month of July following."

Again: in December, 1811, Mr. Sheriff Beikie sets forth to the magistrates in Session, that "the prisoners in the cells of the Jail of the Home District suffer much from cold and damp, there being no method of communicating heat from the chimneys, nor any bedsteads to raise the straw from the floors, which lie nearly, if not altogether, on the ground." He accordingly suggests that "a small stove in the lobby of each range of cells, together with some rugs or blankets, will add much to the comfort of the unhappy persons confined." The magistrates authorize the supply of the required necessaries, and the order is marked "instant." (The month, we are to notice, was December.)

At a late period, there were placed about the town a set of posts having relation to the Jail. They were distinguished from the ordinary rough posts, customary then at regular intervals along the sidewalks, by being of turned wood, with spherical tops, the lower part painted a pale blue: the upper, white. These were the "limits"—the certi denique fines—beyond which, détenus for debt were not allowed to extend their walks.

Leaving the picketted enclosure of the Prison, we soon arrived at an open piece of ground on the opposite (north) side of the street,—afterwards known as the "Court House Square." One of the many rivulets or water-courses that traversed the site of York passed through it, flowing in a deep serpentine ravine, a spot to be remembered by the youth of the day as affording, in the winter, facilities for skating and sliding, and audacious exploits on "leather ice." In this open space, a Jail and Court House of a pretentious character, but of poor architectural style, were erected in 1824. The two buildings, which were of two storeys, and exactly alike, were placed side by side, a few yards back from the road. Their gables were to the south, in which direction were also the chief entrances. The material was red brick. Pilasters of cut stone ran up the principal fronts, and up the exposed or outer sides of each edifice. At these sides, as also on the inner and unornamented sides, were lesser gables, but marked by the portion of the wall that rose in front of them, not to a point, but finishing square in two diminishing stages, and sustaining chimneys.

It was intended originally that lanterns should have surmounted and given additional elevation to both buildings, but these were discarded, together with tin as the material of the roofing, with a view to cutting down the cost, and thereby enabling the builder to make the pilasters of cut stone instead of "Roman cement." John Hayden was the contractor. The cost, as reduced, was to be £3,800 for the two edifices.

We extract from the Canadian Review for July, 1824, published by H. H. Cunningham, Montreal, an account of the commencement of the new buildings: "On Saturday, the 24th instant, [April, 1824,] his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, attended by his staff, was met by the Honourable the Members of the Executive Council, the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, and the Gentlemen of the Bar, with the Magistrates and principal inhabitants of York, in procession, for the purpose of laying the foundation-stone of the new Jail and Court House about to be erected in this Town.—A sovereign and half-sovereign of gold, and several coins of silver and copper, of the present reign, together with some newspapers and other memorials of the present day, were deposited in a cavity of the stone, over which a plate of copper, bearing an appropriate inscription, was placed; and after his Excellency had given the first blow, with a hammer handed to him for the purpose, the ceremony concluded with several hearty cheers from all who were present.—If the question were of any real importance," the writer adds, "we might have the curiosity to inquire why the deposit was made in the south-east, rather than in the north-east corner of the building?"—a query that indicates, as we suppose, a deviation from orthodox masonic usage.

In one of the lithographic views published in 1836 by Mr. J. Young, the Jail and Court House, now spoken of, are shewn. Among the objects inserted to give life to the scene, the artist has placed in the foreground a country waggon with oxen yoked to it, in primitive fashion.—Near the front entrance of the Jail, stood, to the terror of evil-doers, down to modern times, a ponderous specimen of the "parish stocks" of the old country, in good condition.

After 1825, the open area in front of the Jail and Court House became the "Public Place" of the town. Crowds filled it at elections and other occasions of excitement. We have here witnessed several scenes characteristic of the times in which they occurred. We here once saw a public orator run away with, in the midst of his harangue. This was Mr. Jesse Ketchum, who was making use of a farmer's waggon as his rostrum or platform, when the vehicle was suddenly laid hold of, and wheeled rapidly down King Street, the speaker maintaining his equilibrium in the meanwhile with difficulty. Mr. Ketchum was one of the most benevolent and beneficent of men. We shall have occasion to refer to him hereafter.

It was on the same occasion, we believe, that we saw Mr. W. L. McKenzie assailed by the missiles which mobs usually adopt. From this spot we had previously seen the same personage, after one of his re-elections, borne aloft in triumph, on a kind of pyramidal car, and wearing round his neck and across his breast a massive gold chain and medal (both made of molten sovereigns), the gift of his admirers and constituents: in the procession, at the same time, was a printing-press, working as it was conveyed along in a low sleigh, and throwing off handbills, which were tossed, right and left, to the accompanying crowd in the street.

The existing generation of Canadians, with the lights which they now possess, see pretty clearly, that the agitator just named, and his party, were not, in the abstract, by any means so bad as they seemed: that, in fact, the ideas which they sought to propagate are the only ones practicable in the successful government of modern men.

Is there a reader nowadays that sees anything very startling in the enunciation of the following principles?—"The control of the whole revenue to be in the people's representatives; the Legislative Council to be elective; the representation in the House of Assembly to be as equally proportioned to the population as possible; the Executive Government to incur a real responsibility; the law of primogeniture to be abolished; impartiality in the selection of juries to be secured; the Judiciary to be independent; the military to be in strict subordination to the civil authorities; equal rights to the several members of the community; every vestige of Church-and-State union to be done away; the lands and all the revenues of the country to be under the control of the country; and education to be widely, carefully and impartially diffused; to these may be added the choice of our own Governor."

These were the political principles sought to be established in the Governments of Canada by the party referred to, as set forth in the terms just given (almost verbatim) in Patrick Swift's Almanac, a well known popular, annual brochure of Mr. McKenzie's. It seems singular now, in the retrospect, that doctrines such as these should have created a ferment.

But there is this to be said: it does not appear that there were, at the time, in the ranks of the party in power, any persons of very superior intellectual gifts or of a wide range of culture or historical knowledge: so that it was not likely that, on that side, there would be a ready relinquishment of political traditions, of inherited ideas, which their possessors had never dreamt of rationally analyzing, and which they deemed it all but treason to call in question.

And moreover it is to be remembered that the chief propagandist of the doctrines of reform, although very intelligent and ready of speech, did not himself possess the dignity and repose of character which give weight to the utterances of public men. Hence, with the persons who really stood in need of instruction and enlightenment, his words had an irritating, rather than a conciliatory and convincing effect. This was a fault which it was not in his power to remedy. For his microscopic vision and restless temperament, while they fitted him to be a very clever local reformer, a very clever local editor, unfitted him for the grand role of a national statesman, or heroic conductor of a revolution.

Accordingly, although the principles advocated by him finally obtained the ascendancy, posterity only regards him as the Wilkes, the Cobbett, or the Hunt of his day, in the annals of his adopted country. In the interval between the outbreak or feint at outbreak in 1838, and 1850, the whole Canadian community made a great advance in general intelligence, and statesmen of a genuine quality began to appear in our Parliaments.

Prior to the period of which we have just been speaking, a name much in the mouths of our early settlers was that of Robert Gourlay. What we have to say in respect to him, in our retrospect of the past, will perhaps be in place here.

Nothing could be more laudable than Mr. Gourlay's intentions at the outset. He desired to publish a statistical account of Canada, with a view to the promotion of emigration. To inform himself of the actual condition of the young colony, he addressed a series of questions to persons of experience and intelligence in every township of Upper Canada. These questions are now lying before us; they extend to the number of thirty-one. There are none of them that a modern reader would pronounce ill-judged or irrelevant.

But here again it is easy to see that personal character and temperament marred the usefulness of a clever man. His inordinate self-esteem and pugnaciousness, insufficiently controlled, speedily rendered him offensive, especially in a community constituted as that was in the midst of which he had suddenly lighted; and drove, naturally and of necessity, his opponents to extreme measures in self-defence, and himself to extreme doctrines by way of retaliation: thus he became overwhelmed with troubles from which the tact of a wiser man would have saved him. But for Gourlay, as the event proved, a latent insanity was an excuse.

It is curious to observe that, in 1818, Gourlay, in his heat against the official party, whose headquarters were at York, threatened that town with extinction; at all events, with the obliteration of its name, and the transmutation thereof into that of Toronto. In a letter to the Niagara Spectator, he says:—"The tumult excited stiffens every nerve and redoubles the proofs of necessity for action. If the higher classes are against me, I shall recruit among my brother farmers, seven in eight of whom will support the cause of truth. If one year does not make Little York surrender to us, then we'll batter it for two; and should it still hold out, we have ammunition for a much longer siege. We shall raise the wind against it from Amherstburgh and Quebec—from Edinburgh, Dublin and London. It must be levelled to the very earth, and even its name be forgotten in Toronto."

But to return for a moment to Mr. McKenzie. On the steps of the Court House, which we are to suppose ourselves now passing, we once saw him under circumstances that were deeply touching. Sentence of death had been pronounced on a young man once employed in his printing-office. He had been vigorously exerting himself to obtain from the Executive a mitigation of the extreme penalty. The day and even the hour for the execution had arrived; and no message of reprieve had been transmitted from the Lieutenant-Governor. As he came out of the Sheriff's room, after receiving the final announcement that there could be no further delay, the white collars on each side of his face were wet through and through with the tears that were gushing from his eyes and pouring down his cheeks! He was just realizing the fact that nothing further could be done; and in a few moments afterwards the execution actually took place.

We approach comparatively late times when we speak of the cavalcade which passed in grand state the spot now under review, when Messrs. Dunn and Buchanan were returned as members for the town. In the pageant on that occasion there was conspicuous a train of railway carriages, drawn of course, by horse power, with the inscription on the sides of the carriages—"Do you not wish you may get it?"—the allusion being to the Grand Trunk, which, was then only a thing in posse.

And still referring to processions associated in our memory with Court House Square, the recollection of another comes up, which once or twice a year used formerly to pass down King Street on a Sunday. The townspeople were familiar enough with the march of the troops of the garrison to and from Church, to the sound of military music, on Sundays. But on the occasions now referred to, the public eye was drawn to a spectacle professedly of an opposite character:—to the procession of the "Children of Peace," so-called.

These were a local off-shoot of the Society of Friends, the followers of Mr. David Willson, who had his headquarters at Sharon, in Whitchurch, where he had built a "Temple," a large wooden structure, painted white, and resembling a high-piled house of cards. Periodically he deemed it proper to make a demonstration in town. His disciples and friends, dressed in their best, mounted their waggons and solemnly passed down Yonge Street, and then on through some frequented thoroughfare of York to a place previously announced, where the prophet would preach. His topic was usually "Public Affairs: their Total Depravity."

The text of all of Willson's homilies might, in effect, be the following mystic sentence, extracted from the popular periodical, already quoted—Patrick Swift's Almanac: "The backwoodsman, while he lays the axe to the root of the oak in the forests of Canada, should never forget that a base basswood is growing in this his native land, which, if not speedily girdled, will throw its dark shadows over the country, and blast his best exertions. Look up, reader, and you will see the branches—the Robinson branch, the Powell branch, the Jones branch, the Strachan branch, the Boulton twig, &c. The farmer toils, the merchant toils, the labourer toils, and the Family Compact reap the fruit of their exertions." (Almanac for 1834.)

Into all the points here suggested Mr. Willson would enter with great zest. When waxing warm in his discourse, he would sometimes, without interrupting the flow of his words, suddenly throw off his coat and suspend it on a nail or pin in the wall, waving about with freedom, during the residue of his oration, a pair of sturdy arms, arrayed, not indeed in the dainty lawn of a bishop, but in stout, well-bleached American Factory. His address was divided into sections, between which "hymns of his own composing" were sung by a company of females dressed in white, sitting on one side, accompanied by a band of musical instruments on the other.

Considerable crowds assembled on these occasions: and once a panic arose as preaching was going on in the public room of Lawrence's hotel: the joists of the floor were heard to crack; a rush was made to the door, and several leaped out of the windows.—A small brick school-house on Berkeley Street was also a place where Willson sometimes sought to get the ear of the general public.—Captain Bonnycastle, in "Canada as it Was, Is, and May Be," i. 285, thus discourses of David Willson, in a strain somewhat too severe and satirical; but his words serve to show opinions which widely prevailed at the time he wrote: "At a short distance from Newmarket," the Captain says, "which is about three miles to the right of Yonge Street, near its termination at the Holland Landing, on a river of that name running into Lake Simcoe, is a settlement of religious enthusiasts, who have chosen the most fertile part of Upper Canada, the country near and for miles round Newmarket, for the seat of their earthly tabernacle. Here numbers of deluded people have placed themselves under the temporal and spiritual charge of a high priest, who calls himself David. His real name is David Willson. The Temple (as the building appropriated to the celebration of their rites is called,) is served by this man, who affects a primitive dress, and has a train of virgin-ministrants clothed in white. He travels about occasionally to preach at towns and villages, in a waggon, followed by others, covered with white tilt-cloths; but what his peculiar tenets are beyond that of dancing and singing, and imitating David the King, I really cannot tell, for it is altogether too farcical to last long: but Mr. David seems to understand clearly, as far as the temporal concerns of his infatuated followers go, that the old-fashioned signification of meum and tuum are religiously centered in his own sanctum. It was natural that such a field should produce tares in abundance."

The following notice of the "Children of Peace" occurs in Patrick Swift's Almanac for 1834, penned, probably, with an eye to votes in the neighbourhood of Sharon, or Hope, as the place is here called. "This society," the Almanac reports, "numbers about 280 members in Hope, east of Newmarket. They have also stated places of preaching, at the Old Court House, York, on Yonge Street, and at Markham. Their principal speaker is David Willson, assisted by Murdoch McLeod, Samuel Hughes, and others. Their music, vocal and instrumental, is excellent, and their preachers seek no pay from the Governor out of the taxes."

On week-days, Willson was often to be seen, like any other industrious yeoman, driving into town his own waggon, loaded with the produce of his farm; dressed in home-spun, as the "borel folk" of Yonge Street generally were: in the axis of one eye there was a slight divergency.—The expression "Family Compact" occurring above, borrowed from French and Spanish History, appears also in the General Report of Grievances, in 1835, where this sentence is to be read: "The whole system [of conducting Government without a responsible Executive] has so long continued virtually in the same hands, that it is little better than a family compact." p. 43. (In our proposed perambulation of Yonge Street we shall have occasion to speak again of David Willson.)

After the Court House Square came the large area attached to St. James' Church, to the memories connected with which we shall presently devote some space; as also to those connected with the region to the north, formerly the play-ground of the District Grammar School, and afterwards transformed into March Street and its purlieus.

At the corner on the south side of King Street, just opposite the Court House, was the clock-and-watch-repairing establishment of Mr. Charles Clinkenbroomer. To our youthful fancy, the general click and tick usually to be heard in an old-fashioned watchmaker's place of business, was in some sort expressed by the name Clinkunbroomer. But in old local lists we observe the orthography of this name to have been Klinkenbrunner, which conveys another idea. Mr. Clinkenbroomer's father, we believe, was attached to the army of General Wolfe, at the taking of Quebec.

In the early annals of York numerous Teutonic names are observable. Among jurymen and others, at an early period, we meet with Nicholas Klinkenbrunner, Gerhard Kuch, John Vanzantee, Barnabas Vanderburgh, Lodowick Weidemann, Francis Freder, Peter Hultz, Jacob Wintersteen, John Shunk, Leonard Klink, and so on.

So early as 1795 Liancourt speaks of a migration hither of German settlers from the other side of the Lake. He says a number of German settlers collected at Hamburg, an agent had brought out to settle on "Captain Williamson's Demesne" in the State of New York. After subsisting for some time there at the expense of Capt. Williamson, (who, it was stated, was really the representative of one of the Pulteneys in England), they decamped in a body to the north side of the Lake, and especially to York and its neighbourhood, at the instigation of one Berczy, and "gained over, if we may believe common fame," Liancourt says, "by the English;" gained over, rather, it is likely, by the prospect of acquiring freehold property for nothing, instead of holding under a patroon or American feudal lord.

Probably it was to the accounts of Capt. Williamson's proceedings, given by these refugees, that a message from Gov. Simcoe to that gentleman, in 1794, was due. Capt. Williamson, who appears to have acquired a supposed personal interest in a large portion of the State of New York, was opening settlements on the inlets on the south side of Lake Ontario, known as Ierondequat and Sodus Bay.

"Last year," Liancourt informs us, "General Simcoe, Governor of Upper Canada, who considered the Forts of Niagara and Oswego, . . . as English property, together with the banks of Lake Ontario, sent an English officer to the Captain, with an injunction, not to persist in his design of forming the settlements." To which message, "the Captain," we are then told, "returned a plain and spirited answer, yet nevertheless conducted himself with a prudence conformable to the circumstances. All these difficulties, however," it is added, "are now removed by the prospect of the continuance of peace, and still more so by the treaty newly concluded." (Of Mr. Berczy, and the German Settlement proper, we shall discourse at large in our section on Yonge Street.)