Joseph Bouchette in 1793 must have been under twenty years of age. He was born in 1774. He was the son of Commodore Bouchette, who in 1793 had command of the Naval Force on Lake Ontario. When Joseph Bouchette first entered the harbour of Toronto, as described above, he was not without associates. He was probably one of an exploring party which set out from Niagara in May, 1793. It would appear that the Governor himself paid his first visit to the intended site of the capital of his young province on the same occasion.
In the Gazette of Thursday, May 9th 1793, published at Newark or Niagara, we have the following record:—"On Thursday last (this would be May the 3rd) his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, accompanied by several military gentlemen, set out in boats for Toronto, round the Head of the Lake Ontario, by Burlington Bay; and in the evening his Majesty's vessels the Caldwell and Buffalo, sailed for the same place." Supposing the boats which proceeded round the Head of the Lake to have arrived at the cleared spot where the French stockaded trading-post of Toronto had stood, on Saturday, the 4th, the inspection of the harbour and its surroundings by the Governor and "military gentlemen" occupied a little less than a week; for we find that on Monday, the 13th, they are back again in safety at Niagara. The Gazette of Thursday, the 16th of May, thus announces their return: "On Monday (the 13th) about 2 o'clock, his Excellency the Lieut.-Governor and suite arrived at Navy Hall from Toronto; they returned in boats round the Lake."
It is probable that Bouchette was left behind, perhaps with the Caldwell and Buffalo, to complete the survey of the harbour. (In the work above named is a reduction of Bouchette's chart of the harbour with the soundings and bottom; also with lines shewing "the breaking of the ice in the spring." His minute delineation of the pinion-shaped peninsula of sand which forms the outer boundary of Toronto bay, enables the observer to see very clearly how, by long-continued drift from the east, that barrier was gradually thrown up; as, also, how inevitable were the marshes at the outlet of the Don.)
The excursion from Niagara, just described, was the Governor's first visit to the harbour of Toronto, and we may suppose the Caldwell and the Buffalo to have been the first sailing-craft of any considerable magnitude that ever stirred its waters. In April, 1793, the Governor had not yet visited Toronto. We learn this from a letter dated the 5th of that month, addressed by him to Major-General Clarke, at Quebec. Gen. Clarke was the Lieut.-Governor in Lower Canada. Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General himself, was absent in England. "Many American officers," Gen. Simcoe says to Gen. Clarke on the 5th of April, "give it as their opinion that Niagara should be attacked, and that Detroit must fall of course. I hope by this autumn," he continues, "to show the fallacy of this reasoning, by opening a safe and expeditious communication to La Tranche. But on this subject I reserve myself till I have visited Toronto."
The safe and expeditious communication referred to was the great military road, Dundas Street, projected by the Governor to connect the port and arsenal at Toronto with the Thames and Detroit. It was in the February and March of this very same year, 1793, that the Governor had made, partly on foot, and partly in sleighs, his famous exploratory tour through the woods from Niagara to Detroit and back, with a view to the establishment of this communication.
On the 31st of May he is writing again to Gen. Clarke, at Quebec. He has now, as we have seen, been at Toronto; and he speaks warmly of the advantages which the site appeared to him to possess. "It is with great pleasure that I offer to you," he says, "some observations upon the Military strength and Naval convenience of Toronto (now York) [he adds], which I propose immediately to occupy. I lately examined the harbour," he continues, "accompanied by such officers, naval and military, as I thought most competent to give me assistance therein, and upon minute investigation I found it to be, without comparison, the most proper situation for an arsenal, in every extent of that word, that can be met with in this Province."
The words, "now York," appended here and in later documents to "Toronto," show that an official change of name had taken place. The alteration was made between the 15th and 31st of May. No proclamation, however, announcing its change, is to be found either in the local Gazette or in the archives at Ottawa.
Nor is there any allusion to the contemplated works at York either in the opening or closing speech delivered by the Governor to the houses of parliament, which met at Niagara for their second session on the 28th of May, and were dismissed to their homes again on the 9th of the following July. We may suppose the minds of the members and other persons of influence otherwise prepared for the coming changes, chiefly perhaps by means of friendly conferences.
The Governor's scheme may, for example, have been one of the topics of conversation at the levée, ball and supper on the King's birthday, which, happening during the parliamentary session, was observed with considerable ceremony.—"On Tuesday last, the fourth of June," says the Gazette of the period, "being the anniversary of his Majesty's birthday, his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor held a levée at Navy Hall. At one the troops in garrison and at Queenston fired three volleys. The field pieces above Navy Hall under the direction of the Royal Artillery, and the guns at the garrison, fired a royal salute. In the evening," the Gazette further reports, "his Excellency gave a Ball and elegant supper in the Council Chamber, which was most numerously attended."
Of this ball and supper another brief notice is extant. It chanced that three distinguished Americans were among the guests—Gen. Lincoln, Col. Pickering, and Mr. Randolph, United States commissioners on their way, via Niagara, to a great Council of the Western Indians, about to be held at the Miami river. In his private journal, since printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, Gen. Lincoln made the following note of the Governor's entertainment at Niagara:—"The ball," he says, "was attended by about twenty well-dressed and handsome ladies, and about three times that number of gentlemen. They danced," he records, "from seven o'clock till eleven, when supper was announced, and served in very pretty taste. The music and dancing," it is added, "was good, and everything was conducted with propriety." This probably was the first time the royal birthday was observed at Niagara in an official way.