and Fifty houses, many of which exhibit a very neat appearance. The public buildings are, a

Protestant Episcopal Church, a Roman Catholic Chapel, a Presbyterian and a Methodist Meetinghouse, the Hospital, the Parliament-house, and the residence of the Lieutenant Governor.

The Episcopal Church is a plain timber building, of tolerable size, with a small steeple of the same material. It has an extensive burial-ground, which is tastefully fenced and planted.

The Roman Catholic Chapel, which is not yet completed, is a brick edifice, and intended to be very magnificent.

The Parliament-House, erected in 1820, is a large and convenient brick building, finished off in the plainest possible manner.

The York Hospital is the most extensive public building in the Province; and its external appearance is very respectable.

The house in which the Lieutenant Governor resides, is built of wood; and, though by no means contemptible, is much inferior to some private houses in the town, particularly to that of the Honourable and Reverend Dr. Strachan. Many of the Law and Government officers have very elegant seats in and about the town; and, with few exceptions, they are built of wood and assume a most inviting aspect.

The streets of York are regularly laid out, intersecting each other at right angles. Only one of them, however, is yet completely built; and,

in wet weather, the unfinished streets are, if possible, muddier and dirtier than those of Kingston. The situation of the town is very unhealthy for it stands on a piece of low marshy land, which is better calculated for a frog-pond, or beaver-meadow, than for the residence of human beings. The inhabitants are, on this account, much subject, particularly in Spring and Autumn, to agues and intermittent fevers; and probably five-sevenths of the people are annually afflicted with these complaints. He who first fixed upon this spot as the site of the capital of Upper Canada, whatever predilection he may have had for the roaring of frogs, or for the effluvia arising from stagnated waters and putrid vegetables, can certainly have had no very great regard for preserving the lives of his Majesty's subjects. The town of York possesses one great advantage, which is that of a good but defenceless harbour.

This is according to the common opinion, which receives some countenance from the effects upon the inhabitants. But it will be seen, in the subsequent pages, that no general rule, even on this subject, is without exception, and that marshy situations are not universally unhealthy.

LETTER VI.

CHOICE OF A SETTLEMENT ADVICE OF COLONEL THOMAS TALBOT THE COLONEL'S ECCENTRIC HABITS PREFERENCE OF THE TOWNSHIP OF LONDON -PROGRESS TOWARDS THIS POINT OF SETTLEMENT THE COUNTRY ON THE RIVER OUSE-VILLAGES BELONGING TO THE INDIANS OF THE SIX NATIONS-INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF THE NATIVE CATECHISTS ARRIVAL AT PORT TALBOT-DISASTER WHICH BEFEL MY FATHER'S PARTY ON LAKE JOYFUL MEETING DEPARTURE FROM PORT TALBOT TO WESTMINSTER-SITUATION OF THE TOWNSHIP OF LONDON-ITS DISTANCE FROM LAKE ERIE AND OTHER POINTS-ITS BOUNDA-· RIES-FORM AND EXTENT- FIRST DAY AND NIGHT ON OUR AMERICAN ESTATE-WOLF-HUNT IN THE MORNING-OPERATIONS AND STAY IN THE WOODS PREVIOUS TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE FAMILY.

ERIE

WHEN we arrived at York, my father waited on the Lieutenant Governor, and handed him the order for land which we had received from Earl Bathurst. His Excellency told him, that he might select his land from any township in the Province at that time open for location; but assured him, that as he had himself been only a short time in the country, it was out of his power to recommend any particular division to his notice. He then. referred my father to the Surveyor-general; and also gave him a letter of introduction to that offi

cer, directing him to afford us such information as might be required. We called upon the Surveyorgeneral accordingly, but obtained little satisfactory intelligence.

A short time afterwards, my father met with Colonel Thomas Talbot, brother of Richard W. Talbot, Esq., of Malahide Castle, County of Dublin. The Colonel came to this country about thirty years ago, an officer, if I mistake not, in the Fifth regiment of foot. During the period of his being stationed here, he became so much attached to the woods and wilds of Canada, that, on his return home, he felt half dissatisfied with his native country, and seemed with the poet to exclaim,

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade!

He therefore sold his commission, and obtained a grant of 100,000 acres of land, under the condition, that he should place a settler upon every Two Hundred acres. He selected this extensive tract on the Northern borders of Lake Erie, about One Hundred and Fifty miles South West of York. In the year 1802, when there was not a single Christian habitation within forty miles of his own estate, the Colonel commenced a settlement under the most discouraging and inauspicious circumstances imaginable. He called his domain PORT TALBOT, and, in eight or ten years, saw a thriving

settlement gradually rise up around him. But he has not yet been able to fulfil his engagement with the government; nor is it likely that he will, if he continue to estimate his land at its present price, -three dollars per acre for 150 acres, and 50 acres gratis.

The Colonel is perhaps one of the most eccentric characters on the whole continent. He not only lives a life of cheerless celibacy, but enjoys no human society whatever. So great was his aversion to the fair sex, that, for many years after his arrival at Port Talbot, he refused to hire a female servant, but milked his own cows, made his own butter, and performed every other function of kitchen-maid, house-maid, cook, and dairy-woman. Is it not rather strange, that a British officer of such high rank in the army, and respectable connections in civil life, should be induced to settle, in the pathless wilderness, where he is totally excluded from society, unless he should associate with a class of people whom he considers entirely. beneath him, and with whom he has never yet in any respect confederated? Being a Member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, he goes to York once or twice in the year: These visits, and an occasional one to England at intervals of five or six years, serve to rub off the rust contracted in his lonely cottage and to remind him, that the world is still as merry as it was when he figured in its gayest circles.