CHAPTER VII
Administration of Daniel Sutherland—Postal service on the Ottawa river, and to eastern townships—Ocean mails.
On Heriot's retirement, a number of London merchants who traded to Canada, recommended that the postmaster of Montreal, Daniel Sutherland, be appointed as his successor, and the appointment was made in April 1816.[167] Sutherland entered upon his duties with full knowledge of the postal service in Canada, as he had been postmaster of Montreal since 1807.
An effort was made at this time to remove the headquarters of the department from Quebec to Montreal, but it was not encouraged. The postmaster general was of opinion that, although there were no direct official relations between the governor general and the head of the postal service, it would be inadvisable to diminish in any way the opportunities that then existed of enlisting the good will of the governor towards the post office by the pursuit of a more tactful course than had been taken by Sutherland's predecessor. If, while relations between the chief executive and the deputy postmaster general were thus strained, the office of the latter had been removed to Montreal, the chances of establishing a more cordial feeling on the part of the governor towards the post office would have greatly lessened.
The wisdom of the postmaster general in this matter was soon shown. It was not long before the post office incurred the hostility of the legislatures in both Upper and Lower Canada and its case would have been hard indeed, if it had not obtained the steady support of the governors and the executive councils in the two provinces.
A notable feature of Sutherland's administration was the extension of the service into settlements, which lay far off the beaten lines. The first of these to be provided with a post office was the settlement of Perth. In the summer of 1815, a number of Scotch artisans and peasants sailed from Greenock, attracted by the inducements held out to settlers in British North America, and of these about sixty families spent the winter in Brockville on the St. Lawrence. When spring opened, they proceeded inland till they reached the Rideau river, and took up homes about the site of the present town of Perth.
The new settlement was almost immediately joined by a large number of disbanded troops, who were set free on the conclusion of peace with the United States. By October 1816, there were over sixteen hundred settlers in the district. They were fortunate in securing the interest of Sir John Sherbrooke, the governor general, at whose instance a post office was opened, and fortnightly trips were made with the mails from Brockville.[168]
A road was broken between the two places, but little could be said for it for some time. Dr. Mountain, the son of the first Anglican bishop of Quebec, and himself afterwards third bishop of Quebec, accompanied his father on an episcopal trip into Upper Canada in 1820. Among the places he visited was Perth. Of the road he said: "All the roads I have described before were turnpike and bowling green to this."[169] The road was divided into three stages of seven miles each, and the best the party could do was three hours for each stage.