CHAPTER II.

Colonel Talbot--His slanderous utterances with regard to Canadians--The beaver--Salmon in Canadian streams--U. E. Loyalists have to take the oath of allegiance--Titles of land in Canada--Clergy Reserve lands--University of Toronto lands--Canada Company lands.

Thomas Talbot, to whom the Government gave--presumably for settlement--518,000 acres near London, Ont., began to reside on the tract soon after the emigrant whose fortunes we are following arrived in Upper Canada, in 1792. Talbot had previously been Secretary to Governor Simcoe, and was consequently stationed at Newark, the capital, where the settlers were seen as they came into the country from the United States. Why so great a grant was made to him is inexplicable. But it was nevertheless made, and the author proposes to tell how he repaid it. He appeared all the time he was alive, and living in Upper Canada, to thoroughly despise us. Among the other utterances which he sent from Canada to Great Britain was that concerning the origin of Canadians, and although his words are calumniatory, we must have them, for he incorporated them in his book about Canada. Thus he speaks of us: “Most Canadians are descended from private soldiers or settlers, or the illegitimate offspring of some gentlemen or their servants.” He penned these words somewhere about the year 1800. They cannot refer to persons of United States origin--the incomers from the thirteen revolted colonies, which were now independent--because these were not born in Canada. He must therefore have referred to those Canadians and their descendants who were living in Canada in 1792, when he was the Secretary of Governor Simcoe. It is not within the province of the author to defend from Talbot’s calumnies that portion of our fellow-Canadian subjects. His calumny is foul, mean, untrue, and very unjust. Of New England origin himself, the author leaves this insult to be avenged by the pen of some fellow-Canadian who claims descent from old Canadians who were in the country when the war of the Revolution was about closing. So foul an aspersion should never have been passed over in silence.

The foregoing is, however, by the way. We are pursuing the fortunes of Roger Conant, and we find him from 1792 to 1812 struggling among the forest trees to gain a livelihood, or his labors on land occasionally diversified by his work on the lake, the waters of which, perhaps, yielded the most easily obtainable food. Mention has been made of the beaver meadow, and at this date the settler would often come across the traces of this industrious animal. The beaver is the typical unit or emblem of the furs of Canada. All other values of furs were made by comparison with the value of a beaver skin. In intelligence the beaver surpasses any of the fur-bearing animals. In the quality of his workmanship he is the mechanic of the animal tribe, and easily and far-away outstrips all his fellow-brutes, domestic or wild. He can fell a tree in any desired direction, and within half a foot of the spot on which he requires it to fall. One beaver is always on guard and vigilant while the others work. A single blow of the tail of the watching beaver upon the water will cause every other of his fellows to plump into the water and disappear. To carry earth to their dam they place it upon their broad, flat tails and draw it to the spot. While his home is always in close proximity of water he is sometimes caught on land, while proceeding from one body of water to another. Should you meet him thus at disadvantage upon the land, he does not even attempt to run away, nor to defend himself, for he well knows that both attempts would be utterly useless. Another defence is his; he appeals to one’s sympathy by crying--crying indeed so very naturally, while big tears roll from his eyes, with so close an imitation of the human, that it startles even the hunter himself. Many a beaver has been magnanimously given his life out of pure sympathy for the poor defenceless brute when caught at an unfair advantage away from his habitable element of water.

Salt-water salmon, too, swarmed at that date in our Canadian streams in countless myriads. In the month of November of each year they ascended the streams for spawning, after which they were seen no more until the summer of the following year. While we have no positive evidence that they return to the salt water, we know they must do so, because they are so very different from land-locked salmon or ouananiche. They were never caught in Lake Ontario after spawning in the streams in November, until June of the next year. Nor were they found above Niagara Falls, being unable to ascend that mighty cataract. Roger Conant said that his first food in Upper Canada came from the salmon taken in the creek beside his hastily built log-house. To help to realize how plentiful these fish were at the annual spawning time, we may adduce Roger Conant’s endeavor to paddle his canoe across the stream in Port Oshawa in 1805, when the salmon partly raised his boat out of the water, and were so close together that it was difficult for him to get his paddle below the surface. A farm of 150 acres on the Lake Ontario shore, that he acquired just previous to the War of 1812, he paid for by sending salmon in barrels to the United States ports, where they brought a fair cash price. Increasing population, no close seasons by law, nor any restrictions whatever, have been the causes which have resulted in almost destroying

these kings of fish that once came in uncountable swarms.

It will be gathered that up to the War of 1812, the settler, homely clad, axe in hand, subdued the forest, and spent happy, even if wearisome, days, with his dog generally as his only companion. It was during these years that he exhibited that skill in wielding the axe of which mention has been made. To-day, our few remaining woods being more open, and the timber being smaller, such feats would be impossible.

The first beginnings of public utilities were being made. Roads were being cut out of the forest. Some of these grew into forest again so little were they used.

In the last chapter it was noted that Roger Conant lost all his lands in New England by expropriation after the war of 1776. On arriving in Upper Canada he felt the great necessity of bestirring himself to make a fortune again here. Side by side with his clearing operations he carried on his fur-trading, and soon his desires in regard to wealth were gratified, but he never reconciled himself to being so far from his _Alma Mater_, Yale University (New Haven, Conn.), from which he had been graduated (in Arts and Law) in 1765.

Notwithstanding all the sacrifices made by the United Empire Loyalists to maintain British connections, many of them were asked to take the oath of allegiance on reaching their respective localities when they sought to make their home in Canada. Annexed is a photographic document of evidence, being a copy of the certificate of the oath of allegiance taken by one of the author’s relatives before the famed Robert Baldwin. One of the very earliest court summonses of Upper Canada is also reproduced (page 35) and it will be found very interesting. The reader will notice the absence of all printing on this document.

Obviously the title to all lands in Canada, after the conquest of 1759, and not previously granted by the king of France, was vested in the British Crown. There were a few lots of land so granted by the king of France in Upper Canada, but only a few. In Quebec, or Lower Canada, much of the land had already been so granted along the St. Lawrence River. These grants had, as a matter of course, to be respected by Great Britain. The French grants in Upper Canada were only a few along the Detroit River and at the extreme western boundary of the province. The easy accessibility of the lands by water will no doubt account for these grants having been located so remote from all neighbors, the nearest being those in Lower Canada from whence these grants came. Certain lands were also set apart for the Protestant clergy, viz., one-seventh of all lands granted. After a time, instead of taking the one-seventh of each lot granted, they were all added together and formed a whole lot--the “Clergy Reserve” lands, which became afterwards such a bone of contention. In these deeds gold and silver is reserved for the Crown. All white pine trees, too, are reserved, because naval officers had passed along the shore of

Lake Ontario, about the time of the war of the Revolution, and saw the magnificent white pines. These officers were all searching for suitable trees to make masts for the Royal navy, and here they found them; hence the reservation of these trees in all Crown deeds. All deeds of realty to-day in Upper Canada make the same reservations, viz., “Subject nevertheless to the reservations, limitations and provisions expressed in the original grant thereof from the Crown.”

In Australia and New Zealand the governments make reservations so very binding that they can resume possession of lands at any time, as the author found when travelling there in 1898. Our antipodes have not deeds in fee simple as we have. No instance has ever been known in the locality of middle Ontario, in which the author’s home is, and that of his forefathers since 1792, of the Crown ever exercising its right to make use of the reservations.

Time-honored big wax seals were attached to all Crown grants. These seals were quite four inches in diameter, one-third of an inch thick, and secured to the parchment by a ribbon, while the Royal coat-of-arms was impressed on either side of the seal. To the honor and respect of the Crown, be it said, its treatment of the struggling settler was always generous and fair.

The Clergy Reserve lands, which, we have seen, were set apart, soon began to command purchasers, being mainly along the waters of Lake Ontario, as were the other patented lands. In the Act creating

the Clergy Reserve Trust, gold and silver were reserved, but not white pine, because there simply was none there to reserve.

The University of Toronto received odd lots here and there in Upper Canada for its support. This created another source from which tithes came. There were no reservations in the University deeds of 1866. They cited the Act which gave the University these lands.

Lastly came the Canada Company, the last remaining source of tithes. While the Crown, the Clergy Reserves and the University of Toronto were always fair and considerate to the settler, this company always demanded its full “pound of flesh,” and got it, too. It may be observed that the arrangements with regard to these deeds were made by the Imperial Government at home wholly. We were not consulted. By virtue of the Canada Company’s grant, thousands and thousands of acres of lands in Upper Canada were withheld from settlement for many years. To-day the grievance has passed, because they have next to no lands remaining. Perhaps, as Upper Canada has nearly three millions of population now (from 12,000 in 1792), we ought not to grieve. It did us harm, it is true, but it was no doubt unthinkingly originated in London, in 1826, and without sufficient consideration.