58 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
pair of boots of the same, which he wears over his other boots; and,” 
she continues, “as he is fat and short, you cannot think what a curious 
figure he is in this Arctic dress”! The sheepskin coat was famous 
on both sides of the Atlantic, as was also the high box-sleigh, in which 
he made his annual winter visit to the provincial capital, attended by 
his almost equally famous valet and man-of-all-work, Jeffrey Hunter. 
The settlers along Talbot Road watched for its coming, and often was 
its progress delayed by messages to be delivered and commissions to be 
executed in York or at intermediate points. To Jeffrey was entrusted 
the task of keeping these in mind, that none might be overlooked. 
The Colonel’s coat and sleigh were familiar sights at York, where, 
buried in sheepskins, he was not infrequently seen driving Lady Sarah 
Maitland, and in earlier days Mrs. Gore, along King Street. 
XXXV.— CONCLUSION. 
The keynote of Talbot’s character will be found in his pride of 
birth, his military and court training, his domineering temperament, 
his isolation, and his desire to accumulate a great landed estate. Talbot 
Road and Settlement were merely incidental to his main object. His 
virtues, common to all the settlers, were unflinching loyalty and the 
welcome of the open door. To religious, political and moral reform 
he was blindly opposed or contemptuously indifferent. He lacked ini- 
tiative: his schemes of settlement and road-building were borrowed. 
His merit was that he alone exacted a strict performance of settlement 
duties. His signal demerit was that he ignored his own moral and 
civic duty to the two townships, for whose isolation he was alone 
responsible. They found in Henry Coyne, an Irishman from Belfast, 
who settled in Dunwich in 1817, a sympathizing friend and champion. 
Under his and his son’s leadership, public sentiment was aroused, 
reforms and municipal improvements effected, wild lands subjected to 
taxation, and the Colonel forced to lease portions to meet the assessment, 
relieving to some extent the intolerable burden on the settlers. Talbot 
never forgave, nor did the settlers. The mention of his name to-day 
flushes the cheek of their descendants with anger. Who can blame 
them? “Seek other cause ’gainst Roderick Dhu”? 
The editor, to whose hands the irony of fate has entrusted Talbot’s 
papers, has approached the task in, as he trusts, the modern historic 
spirit. If he has erred, it has been on the side of a generous treatment, 
for there are few to say the kind word to-day. It is for the romance 
of his career that Talbot will be chiefly remembered, apart from the 
fact of his being the eponymous founder of a famous settlement. 

*“ Our Forest Home,” page 90. 
