52 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
NOTICE. 
Having seen the proceedings of different meetings held in the 
Talbot Settlement, on the subject of imagined grievances, and finding 
that it is now necessary to ascertain the real sentiments of the inhabit- 
ants, so as at once to put down the fever (by a few only) manifested, 
to encourage disaffection to the British Government, I give this notice, 
recommending a general meeting of my settlers on St. George’s day, 
the 23rd of April next, at the King’s Arms,’ at St. Thomas, at noon, 
when I shall attend. 
THOMAS TALBOT, 
Father of the Talbot Settlement, 
Port Talbot, March 14, 1832. 
The result was a large gathering of the electors, many of them 
armed with bludgeons and prepared for battle. The number was 
estimated at 1,500 to 2,500. E. A. Talbot, of the London “ Sun,” a 
friendly newspaper, computed it at 2,000, of whom 800 signed an address 
dictated by the Colonel and moved by the late Edward Ermatinger, 
who appears to have been one of the leading spirits. Apparently the 
Colonel’s party did not preponderate at the meeting, but his political 
friends were enthusiastic and his opponents refrained from hostile 
demonstrations. At one point in his address there was some noise in 
the outskirts of the crowd, which made the orator pause for a moment. 
Taking out his snuff-box, giving it the usual formal tap, he admin- 
istered a large dose of the powdered tobacco to his nostrils, shook his 
extended fingers a few inches from his nose, and called out: “ Gentle- 
men, I am an old man—but tough.” His admirers spoke of him 
familiarly afterwards as Tommy Tough.” 
XXXI.—TALBOTS SPEECH AT ST. THOMAS. 
The MS. of the speech is an interesting document. The Colonel 
wrote it out on foolscap, beginning economically at the top of the page. 
After its conclusion he discovered that he had omitted the opening 
words. But there was no line left, and he had to crowd them in close 
to the upper edge of the paper, and there we read them in his own 
autograph, “ Silence and attention.” Imagine a political orator of the 
present day beginning his address to a mass meeting of electors in this 

*The King’s Arms Hotel was at the southwest corner of Church and 
Talbot streets, where the Lisgar House stood until it was torn down a 
few years ago. 


