[CRUIKSHANK| A STUDY OF DISAFFECTION IN UPPER CANADA 43 
ment of high treason, misprision of high treason and treasonable prac- 
tices. By a third Act all persons who had become seized of lands in 
the province, by inheritance or otherwise, and had voluntarily with- 
drawn to the United States since the first day of July, 1812, or who 
might thereafter withdraw without license, were declared aliens and 
incapable of holding lands, and the confiscation of their estates was 
authorized upon due inquiry. 
Evidences of continued disaffection were not wanting and an 
American flag which had been hoisted by the “rebellious party” near 
Newmarket on Yonge Street was promptly torn down and destroyed 
by five young militiamen whose names have been recorded. 
Colonel Baynes, the Adjutant General, in advocating a grant of 
land to the officers and men of the Glengarry Light Infantry, in June, 
1814, took occasion to describe the existing situation in most vigorous 
terms and possibly with some exaggeration. 
“Tn the Upper Province,” he wrote, “the population is very scanty, 
and with the exception of the Eastern District, are chiefly of Ameri- 
can extraction, these settlers have been suffered to introduce themselves 
in such numbers that in most parts with the exception above alluded 
to, they form the majority and in many almost the sole population. 
A military force composed of these materials could be but little depended 
upon, and this has been very generally exemplified in some of the most 
populous parts of the settlements, where two thirds of the inhabitants 
have absconded, abandoning valuable farms, and in repeated instances 
have seduced and assisted the soldiers to accompany them—even 
members of the Provincial Legislature have deserted to the enemy, 
and his chief source of information is drawn from the disaffected settlers 
that remain. This impolitic system has been suffered to grow to such 
an extent, that, had it not been checked by the war, a few years would 
have rendered Upper Canada a complete American colony; indeed, 
that had been so nearly accomplished on the important line of com- 
munication between Kingston & Cornwall that had it not been for 
the counterpoise afforded by the Loyal Scots Settlers of that place, 
Stormont & Glengarry, it would have been impracticable to have 
preserved the communication with the Upper Province, & this inter- 
course once interrupted, it would have been impossible for the Upper 
Province to have long sustained itself, as it is well ascertained that 
the several predatory incursions of the enemy between Kingston & 
Brockville were perpetrated with the connivance and aid of settlers in 
that neighbourhood. 

1 Major 8. 8S. Wilmot to Lieut.-Col. Coffin, March 21, 1814. Can. Arch. Militia 
Papers, 1814. 
