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Mr. Morris has also made a creditable name for himself in literature. In 1854 he published a quasi-professional work embodying the Railway Consolidation Acts of Canada, with notes of cases. In 1855 appeared "Canada and Her Resources," an essay to which was awarded the second prize offered by the Paris Exhibition Committee of Canada — the first prize having been awarded to the well-known essay by the late Mr. John Sheridan Hogan by Sir Edmund Head, then Governor-General. Three years later — in 1858 — he delivered a lecture before the Mercantile Library Association of Montreal, in which was predicted the federation of the British American Provinces and the construction of the Intercolonial and Pacific Railways — subjects to which Mr. Morris had given a good deal of attention ever since, when a youth, he had read and studied Lord Durham's famous "Report" on Canada. This lecture was published, in pamphlet form, under the title of "Nova Britannia; or, British North America, its extent and future," by the Library Association. It was widely circulated, and attracted a good deal of attention, not only in this country but in Great Britain and the United States. No fewer than three thousand copies of it were sold in ten days. A contemporary notice of this pamphlet thus refers to the author and his theory: "Mr. Morris is at once statistical, patriotic and prophetic. The lecturer sees in the future a fusion of races, a union of all the existing provinces, with new provinces to grow up in the west, and a railway to the Pacific. The design of the lecture is excellent, and its facts seem to have been carefully collected." In 1859 Mr. Morris delivered and published another lecture of a somewhat similar nature, under the title of "The Hudson's Bay and Pacific Territories," advocating the withdrawal of the North-West Territories from the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, and their incorporation with the Confederacy of Canada along with British Columbia. His latest work, published during the month of May last, is entitled, "The Treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-West Territories." It gives an account of all the treaties made with these Indians, from the original one made by Lord Selkirk down to the present time; contains suggestions for dealing with them, and predicts a hopeful future for them.

Mr. Morris has for many years taken an active part in the Church Courts of, first, the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, and since the union of the four Presbyterian Churches of the Dominion as the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as a representative to the Assembly of that Church. He has been for twenty years a Trustee of Queen's College, Kingston, of which his father was one of the active founders. Mr. Morris actively assisted in bringing about the union of the Churches above alluded to, affirming it to be in the highest interests of Presbyterianism and religion in the Dominion that such a consummation should be brought about.

THE HON. THOMAS TALBOT

Not often does it fall to the lot of the biographer to chronicle a more singular piece of history than is afforded by the life of the founder of the Talbot Settlement in Western Canada. A contemporary writer has proved to us that Ireland has, at one time and another, contributed her full share of notable personages to our population; and Colonel Talbot is certainly entitled to rank among the most remarkable of them all. A man of high birth and social position, of good abilities, with a decided natural turn for an active military career, and with excellent prospects of success before him, he voluntarily forsook the influences under which he had been reared, and spent by far the greater part of a long life in the solitude of the Canadian wilderness. He was the early associate and life-long friend of the illustrious Duke of Wellington. At the outset of their careers, any impartial friend of the two youths might not unreasonably have predicted a higher and wider fame for the scion of the House of Talbot than for Arthur Wellesley; for the former was the brighter, and apparently the more ambitious of the two, and his connections were at least equally influential. Had any one indulged in such a vaticination, however, his prediction would have been most ignominiously falsified by subsequent events. Arthur Wellesley lived to achieve a reputation second to that of scarcely any name in history. He became the most famous and successful military commander of modern times. Nations vied with each other in heaping well-deserved honours upon his head, and his Sovereign characterized him as "the greatest general England ever saw." Statesmen and princes hung upon his words, and even upon his nod; and lovely women languished for his smiles. When he died, full of years and honours, and everything of good which a grateful nation has to bestow, his body lay in state at Chelsea Hospital. It was visited by the high and mighty ones of the Empire, and was contemplated with an almost superstitious awe. It was finally borne with regal pomp, through streets draped in mourning, and thronged by a countless multitude, to its final resting-place in the crypt of the noblest of English cathedrals. The funeral rites were solemnized amid the tears of a nation, and formed an event in that nation's history. The obsequies of "the Iron Duke" took place on the 18th of November, 1852. In less than three months from that date his friend Colonel Talbot also went the way of all flesh. But by how different a road! His life, though it had by no means been spent in vain, had had little to commend it to the emulation or envy of mankind. Its most vigorous season had been passed amid the solitude of the Canadian forest, and in its decline it had become the prey of selfishness and neglect. Colonel Talbot died in a small room in the house of a man who had once been his servant. He must have tasted the bitterness of death many times before he finally entered into his rest. Neither wife, child, nor relative ministered to his wants. But scant ceremony was vouchsafed to his remains. His body, instead of lying in state, was deposited in a barn, and was finally attended to its last obscure resting-place in a little Canadian village by a handful of friends and acquaintances. The weather was piercingly cold, and we may be sure that the obsequies were not unnecessarily prolonged. Surely the force of antithesis could not much farther go!

And yet, as we review the widely diverse careers of these two remarkable men, it is difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that the result in each case was the legitimate outgrowth of their respective qualities. Arthur Wellesley, in his earliest boyhood, formed a definite purpose in life; and that purpose, during all the years of his probation, was kept constantly in view. Every other passion was kept in due subordination to it. Fortune was kind to him, and he well knew how to avail himself of her favours. The acquisition of fame, moreover, bears some analogy to the acquisition of wealth. The first step is by far the most difficult. Dr. Johnson once said that any man of strong will has it in his power to make a fortune, if he can only contrive to tide over the time while he is scraping together the first hundred pounds. Arthur Wellesley, having got his foot firmly on the first rung of the ladder, found the rest of the ascent feasible enough. Now, Thomas Talbot was endowed by nature with a will so strong as almost to deserve the name of stubbornness, but that was almost the only quality which he shared in common with his friend. If he ever formed any definite scheme of life he was certainly very inconsistent in pursuing it. His moods were as erratic as were those of the hero of Locksley Hall. He was unable to bring his mind into harmony with the inevitable, and knew not how to subordinate himself to the existing order of things. Even as an army-officer he was not always amenable to discipline. The follies and frivolities of society disgusted him, and his mind early received a warp from which it never recovered. He lived in a time when there was plenty of work ready to his hand, if he would but have condescended to take his share of it. The work, however, was not to his taste, and his ambition seems to have deserted him at a most inopportune time. He "burst all links of habit," withdrew himself from his proper place in the world, and passed the rest of his days in solitude and obscurity. As the founder of an important settlement in a new Province, he certainly accomplished some good in his day and generation. The enterprise, however, does not seem to have been undertaken with any definite design of accomplishing good, but merely with a view to securing a more congenial mode of life for himself. That a man reared as he had been should find anything congenial in such a life is a problem which is insoluble to ordinary humanity.

The family from which he sprang has long been celebrated both in English and continental history. Readers of Shakespeare's historical plays are, it is to be hoped, sufficiently familiar with that "scourge of France" who was defied by Joan of Arc, and who, with his son, John Talbot, fell bravely fighting his country's battles on the field of Castillon, near Bordeaux. It would be difficult for a man to sustain the burden of a long line of such ancestors as these. It is therefore reassuring to learn that the Talbot line has been diversified by representatives of another sort. Readers of Macaulay's History are familiar with the name of Richard Talbot, that noted sharper, bully, pimp and pander, who haunted Whitehall during the years immediately succeeding the Restoration; whose genius for mendacity procured for him the nickname of "Lying Dick Talbot;" who became the husband of Frances Jennings; who slandered Anne Hyde for the money of the Duke of York; who, in a word, was one of the greatest scoundrels that figured in those iniquitous times; and who was subsequently raised by James II. to the Earldom of Tyrconnel. "Lying Dick" was a member of the Irish branch of the Talbot family, which settled in Ireland during the reign of Henry II., and became possessed of the ancient baronial castle of Malahide, in the county of Dublin. The Talbots of Malahide trace their descent from the same stock as the Talbots who have been Earls of Shrewsbury, in the peerage of Great Britain, since the middle of the fifteenth century. The father of the subject of this sketch was Richard Talbot, of Malahide. His mother was Margaret, Baroness Talbot; and he himself was born at Malahide on the 17th of July, 1771.

All that can be ascertained about his childhood is that he spent some years at the Public Free School at Manchester, and that he received a commission in the army in the year 1782, when he was only eleven years of age. Whether or not he left school immediately after obtaining this commission does not appear, but his education must have been very imperfect, as he was not of a studious disposition, and in 1786, when he was only sixteen, we find him installed as an aide-de-camp to his relative the Marquis of Buckingham, who was then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. His brother aide was the Arthur Wellesley already referred to. The two boys were necessarily thrown much together, and each of them formed a warm attachment for the other. Their future paths in life lay far apart, but they never ceased to correspond, and to recall the happy time they had spent together,

“Yearning for the large excitement that

the coming years would yield.”

Young Talbot continued in the position of aide-de-camp for several years. In 1790 he joined the 24th Regiment, which was then stationed at Quebec, in the capacity of Lieutenant. We have no record of his life during the next few months. Upon the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe at Quebec, at the end of May, 1792, Lieutenant Talbot, who had nearly completed his twenty-first year, became attached to the Governor's suite in the capacity of private secretary. He continued to form part of the establishment of Upper Canada's first Lieutenant-Governor until just before the latter's removal from this country. "During that period," says General Simcoe, writing in 1803, "he not only conducted many details and important duties incidental to the original establishment of a colony, in matters of internal regulation, to my entire satisfaction, but was employed in the most confidential measures necessary to preserve the country in peace, without violating, on the one hand, the relations of amity with the United States; and on the other, alienating the affection of the Indian nations, at that period in open war with them. In this very critical situation, I principally made use of Mr. Talbot for the most confidential intercourse with the several Indian Tribes; and occasionally with his Majesty's Minister at Philadelphia; and these duties, without any salary or emolument, he executed to my perfect satisfaction."

It seems to have been during his tenure of office as secretary to Governor Simcoe that the idea of embracing a pioneer's life in Canada first took possession of young Talbot's mind. It has been alleged that his imagination was fired by reading a translation of part of Charlevoix's "Historie Générale de la Nouvelle France," a work which describes the writer's own experiences in the wilds of Canada in a pleasant and easy fashion. This idea is probably attributable to an assertion made by Colonel Talbot himself to Mrs. Jameson, when that lady visited him during her brief sojourn in Upper Canada. "Charlevoix," said he, "was, I believe, the true cause of my coming to this place. You know he calls this the Paradise of the Hurons. Now I was resolved to get to Paradise by hook or by crook, and so I came here." It is much more probable, however, that he was influenced by his own experiences in the Canadian forest, which for him would possess all the charm of novelty, in addition to its natural beauties. He accompanied the Lieutenant-Governor hither and thither, and traversed in his company the greater part of what then constituted Upper Canada. He formed a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the Honourable William Osgoode, the first Chief Justice of this Province, who was for some time an inmate of Governor Simcoe's abode at Niagara — or Newark, as it was then generally called. The Chief Justice felt the isolation of his position very keenly, and was doubtless glad to relax his mind by communion with the young Irish lieutenant, who possessed no inconsiderable share of the humour characteristic of his nationality, and could make himself a boon companion. At this time there would seem to have been nothing of the misanthrope about Lieutenant Talbot. He seemed to take fully as much enjoyment out of life as his circumstances admitted of. His constitution was robust, and his disposition cheerful. He was prim, and indeed fastidious about his personal appearance, and was keenly alive to everything that was going on about him. He was popular among all the members of the household, and was the especial friend of Major Littlehales, the adjutant and general secretary, whose name is familiar to most persons who take an interest in the history of the early settlement of this Province.

On the 4th of February, 1793, an expedition which was destined to have an important bearing upon the future life of Lieutenant Talbot, as well as upon the future history of the Province, set out from Navy Hall¹ to explore the pathless wilds of Upper Canada. It consisted of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe himself and several of his officers, among whom were Major Littlehales and the subject of the present sketch. The Major kept a diary during the journey, which was given to the world more than forty years afterwards in the Canadian Literary Magazine, a periodical of which several numbers were published in Toronto in 1834. The expedition occupied five weeks, and extended as far as Detroit. The route lay through Mohawk village, on the Grand River, where the party were entertained by Joseph Brant; thence westward to where Woodstock now stands; and so on by a somewhat devious course to Detroit, the greater part of the journey being necessarily made on foot. On the return journey the party camped on the present site of London, which Governor Simcoe then pronounced to be an admirable position for the future capital of the Province. One important result of this long and toilsome journey was the construction of Dundas Street, or, as it is frequently called, "the Governor's Road." The whole party were delighted with the wild and primitive aspect of the country through which they passed, but not one of them manifested such enthusiasm as young Lieutenant Talbot, who expressed a strong desire to explore the land farther to the south, bordering on Lake Erie. His desire was gratified in the course of the following autumn, when Governor Simcoe indulged himself and several members of his suite with another western excursion. During this journey the party encamped on the present site of Port Talbot, which the young Lieutenant declared to be the loveliest situation for a dwelling he had ever seen. "Here," said he, "will I roost, and will soon make the forest tremble under the wings of the flock I will invite by my warblings around me." Whether he was serious in this declaration at the time may be doubted; but, as will presently be seen, he ultimately kept his word.

In 1793 young Talbot received his majority. In 1796 he became Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifth Regiment of Foot. He returned to Europe, and joined his regiment, which was despatched on active service to the Continent. He himself was busily employed during this period, and was for some time in command of two battalions. Upon the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens, on the 27th of March, 1802, he sold his commission, retired from the service, and prepared to carry out the intention expressed by him to Governor Simcoe nine years before, of pitching his tent in the wilds of Canada. Why he adopted this course it is impossible to do more than conjecture. He never married, but remained a bachelor to the end of his days. One writer ventures the hypothesis that he had been crossed in love. The only justification, so far as we are aware, for this hypothesis, is a half jocular expression of the Colonel's some years afterwards. A friend having bantered him on the subject of his remaining so long in a state of single blessedness, took an opportunity of questioning him about it, and in the course of a familiar chat, asked him why he remained so long single, when he stood so much in need of a help-mate. "Why," said the Colonel, "to tell you the truth, I never saw but one woman that I really cared anything about, and she would'nt have me; and to use an old joke, those who would have me, the devil would'nt have them. Miss Johnston," continued the Colonel, "the daughter of Sir J. Johnston, was the only girl I ever loved, and she wouldn't have me."

Whatever cause may have impelled him, it is sufficiently evident that he had become out of sorts with society, and had resolved to betake himself to a distance from the haunts of civilized mankind. Aided by the influence of ex-Governor Simcoe and other powerful friends, he obtained a grant of five thousand acres of land as a Field Officer meaning to reside in the Province, and to permanently establish himself there. The land was situated in the southern part of the Upper Canadian peninsula, bordering on Lake Erie, and included the site of what afterwards became Port Talbot. This, however, was only a portion of the advantage derivable from the grant. In addition to the tract so conferred upon him he obtained a preëmptive or proprietary right over an immense territory including about half a million acres, and comprising twenty-eight of the adjacent townships.² For every settler placed by the Colonel on fifty acres of this land, he was entitled to a patent of a hundred and fifty additional acres for himself. He thus obtained practical control of an expanse of territory which, as has been said, was "a principality in extent." Armed with these formidable powers he once more crossed the Atlantic, and made his way to the present site of Port Talbot, which had so hugely attracted his fancy during his tour with Governor Simcoe. He reached the spot on the 21st of May, 1803, and immediately set to work with his axe, and cut down the first tree, to commemorate his landing to take possession of his woodland estate. The settlement which subsequently bore his name was then an unbroken forest, and there were no traces of civilization nearer than Long Point, sixty miles to the eastward, while to the westward the aborigines were still the lords of the soil, and rules with the tomahawk. In this sequestered region Colonel Talbot took up his abode, and literally made for himself "a local habitation and a name."

At the time of his arrival he was accompanied by two or three stalwart settlers who had crossed the Atlantic under his auspices, and with their assistance he was not long in erecting an abode which was thenceforward known as Castle Malahide. It was built on a high cliff overhanging the lake. The "Castle" was "neither more nor less than a long range of low buildings, formed of logs and shingles." The main structure consisted of three divisions, or apartments; viz., a granary, which was also used as a store-room; a dining-room, which was also used as an office and reception-room for visitors; and a kitchen. There was another building close by, containing a range of bed-rooms, where guests could be made comfortable for the night. In his later years, the Colonel added a suite of rooms of more lofty pretensions, but without disturbing the old tenements, and these sumptuous apartments were reserved for state occasions. There were underground cellars for wine, milk, and kitchen stores. This description applies to the establishment as it appeared when finally completed. For some time after the Colonel's first arrival it was much less pretentious, and consisted of a single log shanty. In order to prevent settlers and other people from intruding upon his privacy unnecessarily, the Colonel caused one of the panes of glass in the window of his office to be removed, and a little door, swung upon hinges, to be substituted, after the fashion sometimes seen at rural post-offices. By means of this little swinging door he held conferences with all persons whom he did not chose to admit to a closer communication. This, which at a first glance, would seem to smack of superciliousness, was in reality nothing more than a judicious precaution. In the course of his dealings with settlers and emigrants, some of them were tempted, by the loneliness of his situation, to browbeat, and even to manifest violence towards him. On one occasion, it is said, he was assaulted and thrown down by one of the "land pirates," as he used to call them. The solitary situation in which he had voluntarily placed himself, and the power he possessed of distributing lands, required him to act frequently with apparent harshness, in order to avoid being imposed upon by land jobbers, and to prevent artful men from overreaching their weaker-minded brethren. His henchman, house-steward and major-domo, was a faithful servant whose name was Jeffery Hunter, in whom his master had great confidence, and who, as we are gravely informed, was very useful in reaching down the maps. Jeffery, however, did not enter the Colonel's employ until the later had been some time in the country. Previous to that time this scion of aristocracy was generally compelled to be his own servant, and to cook, bake, and perform all the household drudgery, which he was not unfrequently compelled to perform in the presence of distinguished guests.

Some years seem to have elapsed before the Colonel attracted any considerable number of settlers around him. The work of settlement cannot be said to have commenced in earnest until 1809. It was no light thing in those days for a man with a family dependent upon him to bury himself in the remote wildernesses of Western Canada. There was no flouring-mill, for instance, within sixty miles of Castle Malahide. In the earliest years of the settlement the few residents were compelled to grind their own grain after a primitive fashion, in a mortar formed by hollowing out a basin in the stump of a tree with a heated iron. The grain was placed in the basin, and then pounded with a heavy wooden beetle until it bore some resemblance to meal. In process of time the Colonel built a mill in the township of Dunwich, not far from his own abode. It was a great boon to the settlement, but was not long in existence, having been destroyed during the American invasion in 1812. For the first twenty years of the Colonel's settlement, the hardships he as well as his settlers had to contend with were of no ordinary kind, and such only as could be overcome by industry and patient endurance.

Colonel Talbot for many years exercised almost imperial sway over the district. He even provided for the wants of those in his immediate neighbourhood, and assembled them at his house on the first day of the week for religious worship. He read to them the services of the Church of England, and insured punctual attendance by sending the whiskey-bottle round among his congregation at the close of the ceremonial. Though never a religious man, even in the broadest acceptation of the term, he solemnized marriages and baptized the children. So that his government was, in the fullest and best sense, patriarchal. His method of transferring land was eminently simple and informal. No deeds were given, nor were any formal books of entry called into requisition. For many years the only records were sheet maps, showing the position of each separate lot enclosed in a small space within four black lines. When the terms of transfer had been agreed upon, the Colonel wrote the purchaser's name within the space assigned to the particular lot disposed of, and this was the only muniment of title. If the purchaser afterwards disposed of his lot, the vendor and vendee appeared at Castle Malahide, when, if the Colonel approved of the transaction, he simply obliterated the former purchaser's name with a piece of india-rubber, and substituted that of the new one. "Illustrations might be multiplied," says a contemporary Canadian writer, "of the peculiar way in which Colonel Talbot of Malahide discharged the duties he had undertaken to perform. There is a strong vein of the ludicrous running through these performances. We doubt whether transactions respecting the sale and transfer of real estate were, on any other occasion, or in any other place, carried on in a similar way. Pencil and india-rubber performances were, we venture to think, never before promoted to such trustworthy distinction, or called on to discharge such responsible duties as those which they described on the maps of which Jeffery and the dogs appeared to be the guardians. There is something irresistibly amusing in the fact that such an estate, exceeding half a million of acres, should have been disposed of in such a manner, with the help of such machinery, and, so far as we are aware, to the satisfaction of all concerned. It shows that a bad system faithfully worked is better than a good system basely managed."³

During the American invasion of 1812-'13 and '14, Colonel Talbot commanded the militia of the district, and was present at the battles of Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie. Marauding parties sometimes found their way to Castle Malahide during this troubled period, and what few people there were in the settlement suffered a good deal of annoyance. Within a day or two after the battle of the Thames, where the brave Tecumseh met his doom, a party of these marauders, consisting of Indians and scouts from the American army, presented themselves at Fort Talbot, and summoned the garrison to surrender. The place was not fortified, and the garrison consisted merely of a few farmers who had enrolled themselves in the militia under the temporary command of a Captain Patterson. A successful defence was out of the question and Colonel Talbot, who would probably have been deemed an important capture, quietly walked out of the back door as the invaders entered at the front. Some of the Indians saw the Colonel, who was dressed in homely, everyday garb, walking off through the woods, and were about to fire on him, when they were restrained by Captain Patterson, who begged them not to hurt the poor old fellow, who, he said, was the person who tended the sheep. This white lie probably saved the Colonel's life. The marauders, however, rifled the place, and carried off everything they could lay hands on, including some valuable horses and cattle. Colonel Talbot's gold, consisting of about two quart pots full, and some valuable plate, concealed under the front wing of the house, escaped notice. The invaders set fire to the grist mill, which was totally consumed, and this was a serious loss to the settlement generally.

It was not till the year 1817 that anything like a regular store or shop was established in the settlement. Previous to that time the wants of the settlers were frequently supplied from the stores of Colonel Talbot, who provided necessaries for his own use, and for the men whom he employed. The Colonel was punctual in all his engagements, and scrupulously exact in all monetary transactions. The large sums he received for many years from the settlers were duly and properly accounted for to the Government. He would accept payment of his claims only in the form of notes on the Bank of Upper Canada, and persons having any money to pay him were always compelled to provide themselves accordingly. His accumulations were carefully stored in the place of concealment above referred to; and once a year he carried his wealth to Little York, and made his returns. This annual trip to Little York was made in the depth of winter, and was almost the only event that took him away from home, except on the two or three occasions when he visited the old country. He was accustomed to make the journey to the Provincial capital in a high box sleigh, clad in a sheepskin greatcoat which was known to pretty nearly every man in the settlement.