1889-90.] DIARY OF GOVERNOR SIMCOE. 133 



in the evening at Mr. Cowan's, on the opposite side of the bay. Re-em- 

 barked, and sailed across in little more than an hour ; it blew so fresh 

 before we arrived that we were obliged to lower our sails. Upon landing, 

 unloaded and hauled up our canoes, encamped in the woods a small distance 

 from the lake, and about half a mile from Mr. Cowan's house, or rather 

 fort, for it is a square stockade ; his house is in one, his store opposite to 

 it in another, an out-house for potatoes, corn, &c., in a third, and the gate 

 in the fourth. He does not allow the Indians to get drunk within the 

 garrison. Soon after we had encamped the Indians arrived, and the 

 Governor made each of them a present of tobacco. About eight o'clock, 

 Mr. Cowan, who had been out hunting all day, returned. He sent His 

 Excellency some ducks, and shortly afterwards came to pay his respects. 

 Mr. Cowan is a decent, respectable looking man, and much liked by the 

 Indians, He was taken'prisoner by the French at Fort Pitt, during the 

 war of '58 and '59, when a boy. He has adopted all the customs and 

 manners of the Canadians, and speaks much better French than English. 

 He has been settled at Matchetache upwards of fifteen years without once 

 going to Lower Canada. He makes an annual trip to Michillimackinac to 

 meet his supplies there and forward his furs to Montreal. He has in 

 general six Canadians engaged with him, and is well known to that class 

 of people by the name of Constant. 



5th. — Mr. Cowan having been desired by the Governor the preceding 

 evening to attend next morning to interpret, arrived after we had break- 

 fasted, and the Indians being met, addressed His Excellency in the usual 

 manner : " They were happy to see him in good health and thanked him 

 for taking the trouble of visiting them in their own country, &c." The 

 Governor replied that he would always be glad to hear of the prosperity 

 of the Indians, and entreated them to attend to their hunts, and told them 

 that he wished for nothing more than seeing them and his children, the 

 whites, live in liarmony together, and mutually assist each other. He 

 promised them a keg ot rum which should be delivered to them the day 

 of his departure from the bay, and told the chief he would send him from 

 York a silver medal and a flag, the usual badges of distinction which this 

 chief had not as j'et received. They then shook hands and went off well 

 satisfied. I must here observe that the Lake Simcoe Indians were much 

 mortified at the Governor not taking the beaver blanket when offered to 

 him. This they communicated to the Matchetache Indians by the express 

 which went overland ; and they simply replied that their father did right 

 not to take it, that they should have made his bed upon his arrival at York 

 (as they did), and not waited for his arrival in their village. The Matche- 

 tache Indians had made his bed at York by presenting a beaver blanket. 



