[siebert] loyalists AND SIX NATION INDIANS 97 



Early in November, 1785, Colonel Henry Hope, who had just 

 been appointed lieutenant governor of the Province of Quebec, called 

 the attention of Lord Sydney to the fact that the Treasury Board had 

 decided that the distribution of provisions to Loyalists throughout 

 the Province, including of course the Niagara Peninsula, was to be 

 made only to June 1, 1786, and that the settlers generally had sown 

 the whole produce of the year's crop before they could be notified 

 of the intended stoppage of their supplies. Thus, they would be left 

 without grain until the harvest of the year following should be gathered. 

 The Lieutenant Governor therefore asked for an extension of the allow- 

 ance of provisions for three months beyond the limit set by the Treas- 

 ury Board. This request seems to have been granted; but a later 

 appeal for a loan of provisions for three months more, which formed 

 part of a petition submitted to Governor General Sir Guy Carleton 

 (Lord Dorchester) in December, 1786, and was forwarded by him 

 to London, elicited the reply that "no further supply of provisions 

 could be granted."^ 



Meanwhile, the settlers had made known to Lieutenant Governor 

 Hope their dislike of the existing arrangement for the building 

 of grist mills by the authorities at Quebec. Evidently such an 

 arrangement did not meet the pressing needs of the new 

 communities. Accordingly, Mr. Hope recommended that the settlers 

 be allowed to erect mills at their own expense, and that they be in- 

 demnified by granting them the right of "banalité" for fifteen years. 

 These proposals were assented to by the Legislative Council, which 

 framed a regulation under which authority might be secured for the 

 building of a grist mill in any township, or seigniory, by Novemeber 

 1, 1786, on the condition that the persons erecting such mills should 

 keep them in running order and be entitled to the banalité for fifteen 

 years, when the mills were to become the property of the government. 

 Under these terms John Burch built a structure between Chippawa 

 Creek and the Falls during the summer of this year, which Captain 

 Enys described as "a very elegant piece of workmanship" and adapted 

 for use both as a grist and a saw mill.^ 



The settlers' petition to Governor Carleton, referred to above 

 on this page, contained a number of requests, besides the one for 

 the loan of 90 days' additional provisions. These requests were 

 aimed at securing tenure of land on the English basis, assistance in 

 establishing Episcopal and Presbyterian churches where needed and a 

 school in each district, clothing for the distressed, the survey of new 

 townships, visits of the Commissioners of Loyalist Claims to points 



1 Niagara Hist. Soc, No. 4, 3; No. 17, 17-19. 



2 Ibid., No. 17, 19-22. 



Sec. I and II, 1915—7 



