228 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
West Fur Company, and Moy House, the handsome residence of its 
well known factor, Angus Mackintosh. 
Farms had been brought under cultivation on both banks of the 
River Thames, from its mouth to the Thirty Mile Woods, in the town- 
ship of Delaware, where a long stretch of unbroken forest began, extend- 
ing to the township of Oxford, in which there was another thriving 
settlement. Many of the people residing here were very recent immi- 
grants from the United States, of whom a goodly number were suspected 
to be fugitives from justice.’ 
The population of the Western District, composed of the counties 
of Essex and Kent, was estimated at four thousand, ‘while the London 
District, comprising the counties of Middlesex, Norfolk and Oxford, 
was supposed to contain double that number, of whom fully two-thirds 
had come from the United States within ten years. These were roughly 
classified as follows by Colonel Talbot, who possessed unrivalled oppor- 
tunities for observation :—‘ 1st, Those enticed by a gratuitous offer of 
land without any predilection on their part to the British Constitution ; 
2nd, Those who had fled from the United States for crimes or to escape 
their creditors; 3rd, Republicans whose principal motive for settling in 
that country is an anticipation of its shaking off its allegiance to Great 
Britain,” and he asserted later on that in the township of Oxford there 
was a disaffected party “ more systematic and violent than the American 
army.” ? In Burford Township, Benajah Mallory, late a member of 
the Assembly, and in Delaware, Simon Zelotes Watson, a surveyor, 
and Andrew Westbrook, who had quarrelled bitterly with Colonel Talbot 
over the location of settlers, were leaders of the disaffected, while in 
the vicinity of Long Point and Port Talbot, loyalists were numerous. 
The enrolled militiamen of the Western District numbered between 
seven and eight hundred, of whom it was believed about five hundred 
might be readily assembled for purposes of defence. The enrolled — 
militia of the London District exceeded a thousand men, but little 
dependence could be placed on many of them. The villages of the 
Six Nations on the Grand River contained a population of nearly two 
thousand persons, of whom, perhaps, four hundred might be classed as 
warriors. They had the reputation of being peaceful and industrious, 
cultivating considerable tracts of land and raising fine crops of wheat 
‘Darby, Travels; Melish, Travels; Gourlay, Upper Canada: Brock to 
Lord Liverpool, 23rd March, 1812; Smith, View of the British Possessions; 
Brown, Northwestern Campaign; Niles’ Register, II, 412. 
* Talbot to Sullivan, 27th October, 1802; Talbot to Vincent, 18th May, 
1813. 
