296 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. II. 



During this time, Dundas Street was opened as far as the crossing of the 

 Grand River, and Yonge Street was nearly completed to the Holland 

 River. The banks of the Thames had also been settled with great 

 rapidity by emigrants both from^Detroit and Niagara. The water-route 

 from Lake Simcoe to Matchedash Bay, and the harbor of Penetanguishene 

 were surveyed and a considerable settlement formed at York and along 

 Yonge Street. 



Although the fur-trade of the west had suffered materially from the 

 war between the Indian tribes and the United States, it continued still 

 to be of considerable importance and was entirely in the hands of 

 British merchants having their head quarters chiefly in Montreal, who 

 also supplied the isolated French and Spanish settlements on the Illinois 

 and Mississippi with manufactures. In the work of transportation 

 through Upper Canada many hundreds of men were employed. Already 

 they possessed a chain of trading posts extending along the Mississippi, 

 from the Illinois to the mouth of the Missouri (then generally known as 

 the St. Peter) which their agents frequently ascended almost to its source. 



The winter of 1794-5 was spent by the Governor chiefly in super- 

 intending the construction of the military roads already commenced 

 and the public buildings and a wharf at Toronto which was then formally 

 designated as the future capital under the name of York. He requested 

 that all moneys derived from the management of the Crown Lands 

 should be applied for similar purposes and advised that these lands 

 should not be sold but leased. Learning that some merchant vessels on 

 the lakes were to be sold in the spring, he hastened to urge that they 

 should be purchased by the province to prevent them falling into the 

 hands of Americans. A block-house was built at Chatham as a prepar- 

 atory step to the establishment of a dock-yard there. A satisfactory 

 agreement was made with the Indians for the purchase of a tract of 

 land at Penetanguishene whither he proposed to remove the garrison of 

 Mackinac and part of the Lake Erie squadron, upon the evacuation of 

 the " barrier forts." 



When war with the United States seemed probable, a number of 

 British half-pay officers living there had made arrangements to remove 

 and join Simcoe's forces. When danger of hostilities no longer existed 

 he proposed to settle these gentlemen and their followers on lands near 

 Long Point, and to station a detachment of troops there, but as the 

 latter was disapproved by Lord Dorchester, he was obliged to be satisfied 

 with forming the settlement only, and encouraging the construction of 

 saw and grist mills. 



The parliamentary session of 1795 was uneventful. There was not a 



