Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

I have observed two things in journeying through Upper Canada. If you find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country people. If you meet with indifference and greasy meats, they are Americans. If you see the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like Mormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to the windows, the said prints representing Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson, Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty and John Bullism reign there; and, although you meet with no servility, you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not deigning to answer a civil question.

Personally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his unwilling guests renders only more hateful.

We departed from Richmond Hill at half-past five, and waggoned on to Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is another excellent resting-place, and the country between the two is thickly settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling through scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from Holland Landing is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses, and suffered the penalty of the outraged laws.

Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings, and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and thought he had a call—a call to be a great general. He passed to his account, so 'requiescas in pace,' Lount! for many a villain yet lives, to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man in some things, for it is well known that his counsels curbed the bloody and incendiary spirit of Mackenzie in many instances. The government has not sequestered his property, although his sons were equally guilty with himself.

We also pass, in going to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Finch's Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious Montgomery, another general, a tavern general of Mackenzie's, who moved to a place about four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was fought.

Montgomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark night, fell into a ditch, broke his leg, and afterwards was hauled by his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St. Lawrence into the United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the action, on account of the barbarous murder there of Colonel Moodie, a very old retired officer, who was killed by Mackenzie's orders in cold blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is again there, having been permitted to return, and his property, which was confiscated, has been restored to his creditors.

Such were Mackenzie's intended government and the tools he was to govern by! Such is the British government! The Upper Canadians wisely preferred the latter.

Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very pretty place, with a neat church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but where now a streamlet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a wealthy merchant, who exports flour largely, the Yonge Street settlement being a grain country of vast extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near Holland Landing, and many others.

From Montgomery's Tavern to Toronto is almost a continued series for four miles of gentlemen's seats and cottages, and, being a straight road, you see the great lake for miles before its shores are reached. Large sums have been expended on this road, which is carried through a brick-clay soil, in which the Don has cut deep ravines, so that immense embankments and deep excavations for the level have been requisite.

Near Toronto, at Blue Hill, large brick yards are in operation, and here white brick is now made, of which a handsome specimen of church architecture has been lately erected in the west end of the city. Tiles, elsewhere not seen in Canada, are also manufactured near Blue Hill; but they are not extensively used, the snow and high winds being unfavourable to their adoption, shingles or split wood being cheaper, and tinned iron plates more durable and less liable to accident.