284 TBANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. II. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF LIEUT.-GOVERNOR SIMCOE, 

 VIEWED IN HIS OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE. 



By Ernest Cruikshank. 



(Read 28th March, i8gi.) 



Until very recently the materials for the history of the Province of 

 Upper Canada under the administration of Lieut.-Governor Simcoe and 

 his immediate successors, accessible to the inquirer, were scanty indeed. 

 Portions of some of Simcoe's earlier despatches had, it is true, been 

 copied many years ago for the Library of Parliament but their fragment- 

 ary condition rendered them of little value. The entire correspondence 

 has now fortunately been transcribed under the superintendence of the 

 able Dominion Archivist and may be consulted by anybody sufficiently 

 interested in it to take that trouble. It may be said, without exaggera- 

 tion, to throw a flood of light not only on the domestic affairs of the 

 Province but also upon the relations of Great Britain with the United 

 States, and with the Indian tribes of the west during a most critical 

 period, and even upon the conduct and progress of the war which was 

 then being carried on by the United States against those tribes. 



I simply intend in this paper to refer to those parts of the correspond- 

 ence which relate to the internal affairs of the Province. Simcoe was 

 undoubtedly a man of an active and original turn of mind, a forcible and 

 voluminous writer of despatches and even when his projects came to 

 nothing, they seldom fail to be interesting and ingenious. From the start, 

 he based great hopes of the rapid development of the colony upon the 

 labors of the small military force which he brought with him. In 

 memorials addressed to Lord Grenville and Mr. Dundas shortly after his 

 appointment in 1 791, he described his intention of building barracks, 

 grist and saw-mills near the head of navigation on the principal rivers 

 falling into Lakes Erie and Huron ; when this was accomplished, the 

 soldiers would be engaged in opening roads and building bridges. The 

 barracks were then to be converted into public houses to be let by 

 auction and the licensing of all others prohibited by Act of Legislature. 

 The mills would be rented in a similar manner. By this means he 

 anticipated that a considerable revenue would be obtained and the 

 colonists enabled to devote their whole time to the cultivation of the 

 soil. The soldiers would then be employed in the navigation of the 



