410 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



warded from the government stores at Sorel for Gugy's colony, as 

 had been done in the previous fall. 1 Late in December one of the school- 

 masters at Machiche, Benjamin Hobson, was assaulted by John 

 Howard, a lieutenant in Sir John Johnson's corps. This affair afforded 

 an opportunity to give a needed lesson to the military and at the same 

 time render the other Loyalists more tractable, as Haldimand ex- 

 pressed it. The assailant was sent to Montreal and placed under 

 bond in the sum of £50 to appear before the quarter sessions and keep 

 the peace. A further lesson to the military came in the form of an 

 order of January 22, 1781, requiring the enlisted Loyalists resorting 

 to Machiche to return to their several corps. However, Sergeants 

 William England and Henry Close were allowed to remain on the 

 score that they were "careful in managing the disorderly set." The 

 order explained that Gugy's settlement was intended only for women 

 and children. It is probably indicative of the discontent of many in 

 the colony that at the end of January fifty-four refugees applied to 

 Haldimand for grants of land at Niagara. 2 



What action, if any, was taken in regard to this petition is not 

 known. Indeed, for two years and two months following we have 

 little information concerning the Loyalist colony at Machiche, on 

 account of a gap in the official correspondence of the period. All 

 that has come down to us relating to this interval is some figures 

 showing the fluctuations in numbers from September 24, 1781, to 

 July 24, 1783. At the first named date three hundred and twenty- 

 seven refugees were receiving provisions at Machiche, four months 

 later this number had risen somewhat (that is, to 355), while six months 

 later still it had dropped to two hundred and sixty-five, of whom 

 thirteen were men, sixty-eight, women, and one hundred and eighty- 

 four, children. 3 Towards the end of March, 1783, Captain Jeptha 

 Hawley was appointed to look after Gugy's colony of Loyalists. Haw- 

 ley was a native of Connecticut who had joined Burgoyne at Crown 

 Point, and had commanded a company of fifty men in the expedition 

 up the Hudson. Subsequently, he had spent several years at Machiche, 

 and was now being entrusted by Abraham Cuyler, inspector of Loyal- 

 ists in the Province of Quebec, with the disagreeable task of reducing 

 the provisions of the refugees, as a means of encouraging not a few to 

 renew the occupations of peace, now at hand, and thereby earn a 

 living for themselves. Some of the colonists memorialized Haldimand 

 against the reduction, going so far as to affirm in their communication 

 that they preferred "the last indigence to the idea of going to service 



' Haldimand Papers, B. 164, pp. 86, 87, 89, 90; B. 163, p. 79; B. 166, p. 173. 



2 Ibid., B. 164, pp. 86, 87, 89, 90; B. 163, p. 79; B. 166, p. 173. 



3 Ibid., B. 166, pp. 83-95, 96, 111-127, 129-143. 



