16 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
in North America. He had served on the staff of the Marquis of Buck- 
ingham, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and on that of Lieutenant-Governor 
Simcoe in Upper Canada. He had spent a year in garrison at Quebec, 
when the leader of society was his friend, His Royal Highness, Edward, 
Duke of Kent. He had hob-nobbed with lords and ladies of high degree 
at the Court of St. James. Princes of the blood were his boon com- 
panions. Ever since the Conquest, the Talbots had been influential at 
court both in London and in Dublin. They had distinguished them- 
selves in many fields. The Talbots of Malahide had been, from the 
days of Strongbow, conspicuous among the great families of Ireland. 
Colonel Talbot’s sale of his commission before he had completed his 
thirtieth year, and his decision to establish a settlement in the woods 
on the shore of Lake Erie, was naturally the sensation of the day. His 
youth and personality, his high social position and connections, the 
sudden abandonment of a creditable and promising career, the many 
surmises as to the reasons which influenced him to exchange it for a 
hermit life in the American wilderness, made him at once a romantic 
personage. he interest was heightened by reports which from time 
to time reached the imperial and provincial capitals. His eccentricities 
of dress, employment and conduct, the curious collection of log-huts 
which grew up round him at Port Talbot, and which he was prone to 
dignify jocosely with the title of the Castle of Malahide, the semi- 
royal state and exclusiveness which he maintained amidst sometimes 
sordid surroundings, the visits of provincial magnates, and eminent 
noblemen and gentry from the home-land, were never failing themes 
for gossip in palace and cabin. On the other hand, in his winter visits 
to the provincial capital at York, divesting himself of his far-famed 
sheep-skin coat and cap, and broad-striped trousers of red and black 
homespun, he resumed with ease at the gubernatorial court of Mrs. Gore 
or the Lady Sarah Maitland the cocked hat, ruffled shirt, silk stockings 
and other paraphernalia, together with the formal airs, old-world man- 
ners and courtly speech of the eighteenth century gallant. 
But, aristocrat as he was, and with all his eccentricities, there was 
a practical side to Talbot’s character, and he looked forward as well 
as backward. His importance as one of the makers of Canada is based 
upon the plan of settlement which he formed, or rather adopted, and 
which he continued to carry out with characteristic determination for 
nearly half a century. As Founder of the Talbot Settlement, he 
attached his name to one of the richest and most prosperous agricul- 
tural regions in the world, extending from Long Point to the Detroit 
River. The Talbot Road is the longest and was for many years the 
