[207] See vol. v, part 1, of the Historical Geography of the British Colonies, p. 196 and note.
[208] Bouchette wrote of York or Toronto in 1815: ‘In the year 1793, the spot on which it stands presented only one solitary Indian wigwam; in the ensuing spring the ground for the future metropolis of Upper Canada was fixed upon, and the buildings commenced under the immediate superintendence of the late General Simcoe, then Lieutenant-Governor.’ A Topographical description of the Province of Lower Canada, with remarks upon Upper Canada, &c., by Joseph Bouchette, Surveyor-General of Lower Canada (1st ed.), London, 1815, pp. 607-8.
According to this account, therefore, the building did not begin till 1794.
[209] The name of the Thames had been previously for a short time given to another Canadian river, the Gananoque. See Shortt and Doughty, p. 651 and note.
[210] Writing in February, 1796, Simcoe stated that the Legislature would meet at Niagara (Newark) on May 7, but that he proposed to dissolve the House of Assembly before the fort was evacuated.
[211] Similarly Sir George Prevost was very popular in St. Lucia when he was commandant and governor in that island, 1798-1802.
[212] This dispatch is printed on pp. 111-21 of Canadian Constitutional Development (Grant and Egerton).
[213] Cp. the similar views expressed by Carleton at an earlier date. See pp. 91-4 above.
[214] The average annual revenue of Lower Canada for the five years 1795-9 inclusive was calculated at £13,000, p. a., of which only £1,500 was derived from Crown Lands, and the average annual expenditure at £25,000, leaving an annual deficit of £12,000.
[215] Brymner’s Report on Canadian Archives for 1892, Calendar and Introduction, p. vi. Cp. Murray’s views as given on p. 67 above, note.