of them but had tasted of the Colonel's bounty and had experienced his directing kindness. Colonel Burwell's address was condemned for its bad taste and intrusiveness.

Towards the close of his life, there is little doubt the Colonel was not temperate. But he had acquitted himself well during his long career, and in what he went through in the solitude of his life must be found the excuse, if excuse can be made. A very small worm will spoil a good apple, and a trifling weakness mar a fine character. But for this blemish, what a proud figure Colonel Talbot would make in our history. Perhaps, notwithstanding it, his form will stand out great and venerable to the eye of future generations. He lived to see his work accomplished. Before he went down to the grave, London was a flourishing capital, and the prosperity of the whole settlement was assured. He succeeded in all his projects regarding his settlers. His design to found a great family estate proved abortive. For some time prior to his death, his mind suffered an eclipse.

Wishing to bequeath his large estate to a male descendant of the Talbot family, he had, at a comparatively early period, invited to Canada one of his sister's sons, Mr. Julius Airey. This young gentleman took up his abode at Port Talbot. But the dulness of the life, the Colonel's eccentricities, and the want of congenial companions, rendered existence unbearable; and, after a residence of a few years with his uncle, he relinquished all claims to Port Talbot and returned to the society for which he pined. Colonel Airey military secretary at the Horse Guards, succeeded to the expectations of his younger brother. Throwing up his attractive and important position, and turning his back on the capital of English civilization, he removed with his family to Port Talbot. From this time Colonel Talbot's infirmities increased. He was doubtless worried. Colonel Airey, instead of living in a house of his own on some part of the estate near "the rookery," took up his residence with his uncle. Differences ensued. Colonel Talbot had been accustomed to dine at noon. Colonel Airey introduced a new order of things; dinner at seven o'clock, and dressing for it indispensable. Not only so, the liquor was locked up. The old man kicked. He determined to keep a separate establishment. But he had been disturbed at a time when new habits cannot be formed. He grew

DEATH OF THE GREAT PIONEER.

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sick and discontented. He resolved to leave Canada. He would, he thought, draw out the remainder of his days in England, or on the continent. He left Port Talbot. But taken sick at London, Canada West, he lay there, the old man, nigh eighty years of age, in a dangerous condition for weeks. He was, however, in the midst of kind friends in the house of Mr. John Harris. He recovered but henceforth he was a mere tool in the hands of George McBeth. He set out for England, where he remained a year and then returned to lay his bones in the country to which he had devoted his life. It was a distressing thing to see the old man settle down in a humble cottage on the outskirts of his magnificent estate. The man who had once been lord of Port Talbot was fain to lodge in a small room in the house of Mrs. Hunter, the widow of his friend and servant Jeffrey. He had made over to Colonel Airey the Port Talbot estate, worth $50,000, and 13,000 acres in the adjoining Township of Aldboro'. This was not a moiety of the estate which Colonel Airey had had reason to expect would descend to him; but now it was evident it was all he would get from the Colonel. He therefore rented what he had got to Mr. Saunders and returned with his family to England, where he resumed his post at the Horse Guards. The remainder of the estate, worth $250,000, was bequeathed to George McBeth, who married a daughter of Mr. Saunders. With McBeth the Colonel removed to London and resided in the house of his former servant and sole legatee, until the day of his death which occurred on the 6th February, 1853.

His remains were removed from London on the 9th of February, the day previous to interment, and were placed for the night in the barn of an inn-keeper at Fingal, to the indignation of the old settlers. One old man, Samuel Burwell, begged with tears in his eyes to have the body removed to his own house. But this would have disturbed McBeth's arrangements. On the following day the corpse was removed from Fingal to Port Talbot and rested for a short time within the mansion once owned by the deceased. The hearse was followed by the leading men of London to the church at Tyrconnel. The day was bitterly cold, but a few fast friends had come to see him interred. He lies in a grave near the church. On the oak coffin ran the simple inscription—“Thomas

Talbot, Founder of the Talbot Settlement: Died 6th Feb., 1853." It may truly be added now that here rests one of the founders of Canada,

In 1796, after playing a great part in Canada for an exceptionally long time and proving himself a true friend to all the colonists, and not least to the French Canadians, Lord Dorchester, amid the heartfelt regret of the people, took his departure from our shores. He died in 1808, in his eighty-third year.

CHAPTER V.

WE have seen an Irishman prove himself the saviour of Canada, and watch with parental anxiety and care, with efficiency and farsighted wisdom, her infant years. We have seen another Irishman turn his back on love, on high position, on all the charms of civilization, on the most attractive of all professions, on the most fascinating of all careers, to come to Canada to play a patriarchal part, amid hardships which would have appalled a less unconquerable soul, and turned the edge of a less finely tempered will. We are now to watch Irishmen in a sphere other than that of politics, and on a less grandly heroic scale. In earlier chapters I pointed out what a great people had done throughout the world.

[Authorities :-Original Sources: “Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia”: “Nova Scotia Archives": Mrs. Moodie's "Roughing it in the Bush" : "The Atlantic Monthly": Haliburton's "Nova Scotia": Old Files of Newspapers: Anspach's "History": Bonneycastle's "History of Newfoundland": Mackintosh's “Parliamentary Companion": "St. John and its Business": "Early settlers of Bowmanville, Darlington, Clarke, and the surrounding country," by J. T. Coleman: Poole's "Early settlement of Peterborough": Campbell's History of Prince Edward Island: “Historical and General Record of the Irish Settlement of Colchester County, down to the present time," by Thomas Milllar, Halifax, N. S.: "Ireland and the Centenary of American Methodism," by the Rev. William Crook : "Case and his Contemporaries," by the Rev. Dr. Carroll: "The Irish Position," by D'Arcy McGee.]

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Any other word than world would be too small. For on what shore have they not left monuments of their energy and genius. They have gone forth from a little island and made the wide earth their mausoleum.* A branch of that people exist here in Canada

While I write these lines there comes the account of the death of a man who was distinguished at a time ere a generation already past had come into existence. FieldMarshal Sir John Forster-Fitzgerald, G. C. B., died at Tours, on the 24th of March. The French military authorities of that city-perhaps MacMahon remembered the thread which apart from military renown bound them both-received instructions from Paris on the 26th to give the dead hero a military funeral. Mr. Disraeli's government made a mistake in not taking to itself the glory of giving fitting sepulture to the old hero. He was the oldest soldier the Empire had, and he had risen to the highest rank in his profession. He entered the army in 1793. He served in the Peninsula where he commanded a light battalion and a brigade, and was present at most of the engagements which culminated with Napoleon's overthrow at Waterloo. He took a prominent part in the assault on Badajos and fought gallantly at the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria and the Pyrenees, receiving the Gold Cross for personal bravery and distinguished services. He was owner of the large estate of Carrigoran and he was as considerate to his tenantry as he was brave in the field,

Some verses in Truth, April 5th 1877, may be quoted :

He was the oldest warrior England had
And from a fighting family had sprung;
He won his spurs when he was yet a lad,

And fought when the old century was young.

At Badajos the fatal breach he scaled;

He lived through Salamanca's bloody fray;
Was at Vittoria where a monarch quailed,
And lived to tell of Talavera's day.

Bravely he fought through the fierce campaign,
That brought the beaten Frenchmen to their knees,
When just from their last holding-place in Spain,
They turned to bay amongst the Pyrenees.

Bravely he fought and well; he wore

The golden cross for valour on his breast,

Until he died upon a foreign shore,

And found at length from life's long struggle rest.

The writer then upraids England for her parsimony in not sending over to Tours some The least, he says, England could have given him was a tomb.

of his old comrades.

And so it happed; for all the honour payed

To our field-marshal at his long life's close

And military demonstration made

Was by the Frenchmen, his old gallant foes.

But was it meet to treat a soldier thus?

Who'd gained the highest rank our army knows?

It

say

to-day, and has been here from the beginning of British rule. is in no spirit of unworthy rivalry or small boasting that I their hands have done more than those of any other to clear the wilderness. If we look at the census alone it proves this. But the census does not tell all. There are thousands of flourishing acres here in Canada on whose yellow harvests an owner looks who is not Irish, but which acres were cleared by Irishmen. These in some instances dropped like soldiers in the battle and fell into unknown graves, truly the unremembered brave. On lands where their names are unknown they planted the first civilizing foot they grappled with the wilderness; and then they passed away as we all shall, the best of us, and the most successful. And what more can be said of us than of them? If it can be said we did our day's work it will be well.

I shall show, by-and-bye, that we owe our present constitution in great part to Irishmen. I have already dwelt on their character and genius and on part of their achievements, and if the tale is continued it is not that I may here in Canada draw my countrymen aside from other people; above all it is not that I may fan illogical, unhistorical, and unchristian hatreds in their breasts. Better that patriotism should be torn from a man's heart, and all the love which swells in it when he thinks of that land which for centuries has lain on the waves like a beautiful sorrow, if that patriotism and that love could not co-exist with sweet human charities for other people.

Was it noble, was it generous

That thus a gallant history should close?

The close of such a career is a sad and splendid illustration of the speech of Ulysses to Achilles when he would persuade the sulking hero to leave his tent and once more measure his brand with Hector :

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great sized monster of ingratitudes;

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done: Perseverance dear, my lord,

Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery.