70 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
struction, at the expense of the Imperial Government, of many forti- 
fications and other public works in aid of transportation, all of 
which were charged to the military chest. This expenditure furnished 
most of the ready money to be found in the various British North 
American provinces. 
Speaking of the continuation of the military expenditure after 
the close of the Revolutionary War, the Honourable Richard Cart- 
wright, identified with so much of the early international commerce of 
the Canadas, thus described the situation in a letter to his personal and 
business friend, Mr. Isaac Todd, of Montreal, in 1792, ‘‘To what is to 
be ascribed the present state of the improvement and population of 
this country ? Certainly not to its natural advantages, but to the 
liberality which the Government has shown towards the Loyalists 
who first settled it; to the money spent by the numerous garrisons and 
public departments established amongst us; and the demand for our 
produce which so many unproductive consumers occasion on the spot. 
As long as the British Government shall think proper to hire people to 
come over to eat our flour, we shall go on very well, and continue to 
make a figure, but when once we come to export our produce, the dis- 
advantages of our remote, inland situation will operate in their full 
force, and the very large portion of the price of our produce that must 
be absorbed by the expense of transporting it to a place of exportation, 
and the enhanced value that the same cause must add to every article 
of European manufacture will give an effective check to the improve- 
ment of the country beyond a certain extent.” 
Cartwright’s prediction was duly fulfilled. As the western settle- 
ments in particular expanded during the first decade of the nineteenth 
century, it became increasingly difficult to profitably dispose of an 
augmenting proportion of their products, which had to find a market 
beyond the borders of the country. Direct trade with the West Indies 
had not been developed and the peculiarly erratic operation of the 
Corn Laws rendered the British markets most uncertain for the dis- 
posal of Canadian grain—the chief surplus product of the country. 
The long delay involved in obtaining information as to the condition 
of the British market and the still longer time involved in transporting 
the products thither and receiving returns, rendered the export trade 
to the Mother Country a very speculative one. Prices, therefore, fell 
steadily in Canada and ready money was increasingly difficult to pro- 
cure. For some years before the outbreak of the War of 1812, the 
Canadian merchants were compelled to sell their goods on long credits 
and almost invariably to accept farm produce in exchange, the 
returns for which were often not made for a couple of years. Thus, 
frequently three or four years elapsed between the sale of imported 
