Chapter 5

of Long Point:

"This country owes its settlement solely to the persevering industry of my worthy and excellent friend, Colonel Talbot. Forty years ago, while exploring the about-to-be province, on the staff of its governor, General Simcoe, he was struck with the beauty and fertility of this tract; and afterwards observing that, from the improvident grants of the colonial government to friends and favourites, this fertile country, if left in their hands, would continue for ages a howling wilderness, he procured from the authorities at home an exclusive power of settling it. For this purpose he set himself down in the very midst of the territory, without another human habitation within fifty miles of him, and commenced his arduous undertaking by cutting out roads, amidst much head-shaking from the sage, and sneering from the ignorant. He however never was a man who held as a part of his creed the wise aphorism, so often quoted in the present day, '_Vox populi vox Dei_;' but held steadily on in the teeth of opposition, vexation, and disappointment, until after about fifteen years of unremitting labour and privation, it became so notorious in the province, that even the executive government at York became aware that there was such a place in existence as the Talbot settlement, where roads were cut, and farms in progress:--and hereupon they rejoiced,--for it held out to them just what they had long felt the want of,--a well-settled, opened, and cultivated country, wherein to obtain estates for themselves, their children, born and unborn, and their whole kith, kin, and allies. When this idea, so creditable to the paternal feelings of these worthy gentlemen was intimated to the Colonel, he could not be brought to see the fitness of things in an arrangement which would confer on the next generation, or the next again, the fruits of the labour of the present; and accordingly, though his answer to the proposal was not couched in terms quite so diplomatic as might have been wished, it was brief, soldier-like, and not easily capable of misconstruction;--it was in these words, 'I'll be ---- if you get one foot of land here;' and thereupon the parties joined issue. On this, war was declared against him by his Excellency in Council, and every means were used to annoy him here, and misrepresent his proceedings at home; but he stood firm, and by an occasional visit to the Colonial Office in England, he opened the eyes of ministers to the proceedings of both parties, and for awhile averted the danger. At length, some five years ago, finding the enemy was getting too strong for him, he repaired once more to England, and returned in triumph with an order from the Colonial Office, that nobody was in any way to interfere with his proceedings; and he has now the pleasure of contemplating some hundreds of miles of the best roads in the province, closely settled on each side by the most prosperous farmers within its bounds, who owe all they possess to his judgment, enthusiasm, and perseverance, and who are grateful to him in proportion to the benefits he has bestowed upon them, though in many instances much against their will at the time. I spent a fortnight with him some eighteen months ago; and certainly one of his levees with his settlers would, if as well reported, be quite as amusing as one of those Mornings at Bow Street--that about the time I left London were styled, by some wag, the leading articles of the Morning Herald."