20 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The new constitution of 1791 gave Upper Canada a Lieutenant- 

 Governor subordinate to the Governor who resided in the Lower 

 province. The first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was 

 Lieutenant-General Simcoe. His business, as he evidently conceived 

 it, was to establish the province on a sound economic basis. He 

 proposed to form a kind of industrial army consisting of a corps 

 independent of the troops of the line. This corps was to be employed 

 for the construction of public works. He proposed to establish a 

 capital and to concentrate immigrants in its neighbourhood;^ and 

 he proposed that since the great need of the country was ready money 

 that the British Government should send out a large sum in gold.^ 

 He disapproved of the reliance placed by some in the fur trade; and 

 he thought that this trade should be left wholly to the companies in 

 the North West.'-" He insisted upon the immediate establishment of 

 two schools, one at Kingston and one at Niagara, and the speedy 

 establishment of a University at the capital. The projects were 

 formed before he left England. They are strongly infected with 

 contemporary enthusiasm for industrial and commercial development 

 and are coloured by the military notions of the time. Simcoe's dislike 

 of the fur trade was quite in keeping with this enthusiasm. The 

 interests of the fur traders lay in preservation of the primitive con- 

 dition of the country, in prevention of settlement and in discourage- 

 ment of agriculture and free commerce. The germ of American 

 capitalism on the large scale had lain in the fur trade, and there is 

 little doubt that had the colonies in revolt been able to secure the 

 adhesion of Canada, the powerful influence of the fur traders would 

 have been exerted to keep the country as long as possible as a forest 

 preserve and to prevent settlement. Although there were English- 

 men in the fur trade, the gen^eral view of commercial development 

 prevalent in England at that time was not that of the fur traders. 

 The commercial magnate undoubtedly wanted monopoly; but the 

 merchants of middle rank, who were becoming numerous and politic- 

 ally influential before the end of the eighteenth century, wanted 

 freedom of trade in every direction, and Simcoe seems to have repre- 

 sented their views. As usual in such cases, Simcoe underestimated 

 the element of time. His more important projects were eventually 

 carried out but at a much later period. 



*Simcoe to Dundas, June 2, 1791. State Papers of Upper Canada. Q. 278. 

 Calendared in Report of Canadian Archives. Ottawa, 1891. Sect. VIII, p. 1. 



^Scott, Duncan, Campbell. J. G. Simcoe in Makers of Canada Series, Toronto, 

 1905, p. 111. 



loSimcoe to Dundas, April 28, 1792, p. 11. 



