"Hoping you may be able to find something in these fragments which will be interesting to you,
"I remain, with the greatest respect,
"Yours most faithfully,
"J.B. Hutchison."
Patriotic feelings—Early Settlement of Prince Edward County and Neighbouring Townships.
Extracts of an address entitled "Scraps of Local History," delivered by Canniff Haight, Esq., before the Mechanics' Institute of Picton, March 16th, 1859:
"If I feel a pride in one thing more than another, it is that I am a Canadian. I rejoice more in being the descendant of these early pioneers of Canada, than if noble blood coursed my veins. I point you back with more unmitigated pleasure to that solitary log cabin in the wilderness which once bordered your fine bay, as the home of my fathers, than I would to some baronial castle in other lands.
"Is there for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
"The coward slave we pass him by—
We dare be poor for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that!'
"We love our country. Thousands of sweet recollections cluster round our childhood's homes, and as we think of them the words of Scott occur to us:
"'Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land;
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned.
As home his footsteps he hath turned'——