The proposed journey to and from Quebec may have been accomplished after the 20th of December.
In June of the following year, 1795, the Governor is at Navy Hall, Newark. He receives and entertains there for eighteen days the French Royalist Duke de Liancourt, who is on his travels on the American continent. The Duke does not visit York; but two of his travelling companions, MM. du Pettithouars and Guillemard take a run over and report to him that there "had been no more than twelve houses hitherto built at York." The barracks, they say, stand on the roadstead two miles from the town, and near the Lake. The duke adds: "Desertion, I am told, is very frequent among the soldiers."
While staying at Navy Hall, the Duke de Liancourt was taken over the Fort on the opposite side of the river; he also afterwards dined there with the officers. "With very obliging politeness," the duke says, "the Governor conducted us over the Fort, which he is very loth to visit, since he is sure that he will be obliged to deliver it up to the Americans."—In fact it was made over to them under Jay's Treaty in this very year 1794, along with Oswego, Detroit, Miami, and Michilimackinac, though not actually surrendered until 1796. And this was the somewhat inglorious termination of the difficulties between the Indian allies of England and the United States Government, which had compelled the Governor again and again to undertake toilsome journeys to the West.—"Thirty artillerymen," the duke notes, "and eight companies of the Fifth Regiment form the garrison of the Fort. Two days after the visit," he continues, "we dined in the Fort at Major Seward's, an officer of elegant, polite and amiable manners, who seems to be much respected by the gentlemen of his profession. He and Mr. Pilkington, an officer of the corps of Engineers, are the military gentlemen we have most frequently seen during our residence in this place, and whom the Governor most distinguishes from the rest."
In 1796 Governor Simcoe was ordered to the West Indies. He met his Parliament at Newark on the 16th of May, and prorogued it on the 3rd of June, after assenting to seven Acts.
In the Gazette of Sept. 11, 1796, a proclamation from Peter Russell announces that "His most gracious Majesty has been pleased to grant his royal leave of absence to his Excellency Major General Simcoe," and that consequently the government pro tem. had devolved upon himself.
In the November following, Mr. Russell, now entitled President, comes over from Niagara in the Mohawk. The Gazette of Nov. 4, 1796 (still published at Niagara), announces: "Yesterday (Nov. 3), his Honour the President of the Province and family sailed in the Mohawk for York. On his departure he was saluted with a discharge of cannon at Fort George, which was answered by three cheers from on board." (Fort George, afterwards famous in Canadian annals, and whose extensive remains are still conspicuous, had now been constructed, on the west side of the river, close by Newark or Niagara, as a kind of counterpoise to the French Fort on the east side of the river, immediately opposite, which had just been surrendered to the United States.)
It is briefly noted in the Gazette of the 26th of January in the following year (1797), that the President's new house at York had been destroyed by fire. This may account for his being at Niagara in May (1797), and sailing over again in the Mohawk to York, apparently to open Parliament. The Gazette of the 31st of May, 1797, says: "On Saturday last, sailed in the Mohawk for York, his Honour the Administrator, and several members of the Parliament of the Province."
(The Mohawk had come up from Kingston on the 27th of April. On the 28th of that month a vessel had arrived at Niagara, bearing the name of the late Governor. The Gazette of May 3, 1797, thus speaks: "On Sunday last, arrived from Kingston his Majesty's armed vessel the Mohawk; and on Monday last, the Governor Simcoe, being their first voyage.")
The Gazette of the 31st, in addition to the departure of the Mohawk for York, as above, gives us also the following piece of information whence we learn that in the trade of the Lake, a competition from the United States side was about to begin:—"On the same day (the day when the Mohawk sailed for York), arrived here (Niagara) a Deck-boat, built and owned by Col. John Van Rensselaer, of Lansingburg, on the North River. This enterprising gentleman," the Gazette says, "built and completed this and one other of the same bigness (fifty barrels burden), and conveyed them by high waters to Oswego, and arrived there without injury this spring. They are to ply continually between Oswego and this place and Kingston."