[siebert] loyalists AND SIX NATION INDIANS 107 



in three marquees, or tents, on the hill above the hall. The village 

 numbered not more than 100 houses at this time, and tenements were 

 scarcely obtainable. After a search of ten days, William Jarvis, 

 secretary to the Governor, was obliged to pay 140 pounds for a log 

 cabin of three rooms with half an acre of ground, and even then was 

 put to the extra expense of adding another room. The Queen's 

 Rangers were sent up the river to build huts for themselves in the 

 hamlet at the "New Landing," which came soon to be called 

 Queenston, probably from being the headquarters of this corps. 

 At any rate, Samuel Street, a well known trader in the vicinity, 

 disputed the Rangers' occupation of their camp site. In the suit 

 that followed judgment was given for the Crown, and it was 

 disclosed that many other Crown reserves were occupied by squatters.^ 



On July 16, 1792, Simcoe published a proclamation dividing the 

 Province into counties, with their subdivisions, or ridings, for the elec- 

 tion of representatives in the Legislative Assembly. The fifteenth 

 in the list of these counties was Lincoln, which comprised all of the 

 Niagara Peninsula, except a rectangular area on the south side of 

 Burlington Bay. The Long Point country, which adjoined Lincoln 

 County on the southwest and was soon to fill with Loyalists and others, 

 received the designation of Norfolk County. Although the Governor 

 met with opposition from Dundas in his policy of encouraging immi- 

 gration from the United States, he clung tenaciously to the obvious 

 conclusion that "unless the province was peopled, it would be unable 

 to pay its way for many years," but he denied any intention of offend- 

 ing the neighboring government by his methods of encouraging settle- 

 ment north of the Great Lakes. At the same time, he maintained on 

 the basis of his own experience that the settlers from the States were 

 "generally superior to Europeans in their ability to take care of them- 

 selves," and he continued to report from time to time that there was 

 every prospect of a large immigration. To the Quakers, Tunkers, 

 and Mennonites he held out the promise, not in vain, of the same 

 exemption from military service that they had formerly enjoyed in 

 other British Colonies in North America.^ 



On September 17, Simcoe convened the first Parliament of Upper 

 Canada in the presence of much the same motley assemblage of troops, 

 Indians, and inhabitants as had witnessed the arrival of the Governor 

 less than two months before. At mid-day the guns of the fort gave 

 a royal salute, and Simcoe, preceded by a band of music, the colors, 

 and a guard of honor, proceeded to the Freemason's Hall, where he 



1 Niagara Hist. Soc, No. 4, 3; No. 11, 32, 33; Carnochan, Niagara One Hundred 

 Years Ago, 16; Niagara Hist. Soc, No. 26, 40. 



2 Niagara Hist. Soc, No. 26, 30, 31. 



