[coynE] THE TALBOT PAPERS 57 
prettiest, the neatest and the most active of the whole party.” Mrs. 
Amelia Harris in her interesting reminiscences observes that while in 
the army Talbot was regarded as “quite a dandy.” Her recollection 
went back almost to the beginning of the settlement, when he was 
between thirty and forty years of age. William Lyon Mackenzie saw 
him on the hustings at St. Thomas in 1824, and was strongly prepos- 
sessed in his favour by what he saw and heard. “ His air,” he writes, 
“is that of a military officer of distinction. In youth he must have 
possessed a handsome person and well-formed features; for even now, 
and he is nearly sixty years of age, his features have nothing harsh, 
and his appearance is rather prepossessing.” ? Two years later, Mrs. 
Stewart saw and conversed with Talbot when he accompanied Sir Pere- 
-grene Maitland to Peterborough. His eccentricities were widely known ; 
but they were not in evidence on state occasions, and she, like Macken- 
zie, was disappointed to find that there was nothing remarkable about 
his manner. Having heard from his own lips a recital of the strategy 
by which he avoided capture by so-called “ Indians ” who invaded Port 
Talbot during the war, she writes, “ He gives me the idea of the most 
cool courage imaginable.” ? 
His portrait in water-colours, painted when he was probably up- 
wards of sixty years of age, shows a full, florid face, beaming with 
intelligence and good-nature, twinkling eyes, features and expression 
strongly resembling those of King William TV, on the whole a striking 
and attractive figure. With advancing years, he became more corpulent. 
Mrs. Stewart thought him “fat and short.” A pathetic picture is 
furnished by one of his neighbours,? who remembers the Colonel as a 
feeble old man, bent nearly double, and creeping about the old place, 
laboriously leaning on a stout walking-stick. 
Proud of the homespun, manufactured and worn by his settlers, 
Talbot followed their fashion, and was hardly to be distinguished in 
attire from the poorest among them, as he moved about his estate. 
The portrait represents him in trousers with broad stripes of scarlet 
and black,t the whole costume probably of home manufacture. On his 
travels, even in England, and in visits to great houses, where he was 
a welcome guest, he persisted in wearing garments of Port Talbot 
manufacture, whose excellence he vaunted in comparison with English 
cloths. When Mrs. Stewart saw him he wore a “ greatcoat made of 
sheepskins with the wool on, either of natural black or dyed, and a 
1“ Sketches of Canada and the United States,’ London, 1833, pp. 113-114. 
2“ Our Forest Home,” pages 90-93. 
Mr. George McKay, who still resided near Port Talbot until a few 
months ago. 
*These do not appear in the frontispiece. 
