BOOK NOTICES^ 327 



main, all found a common level ; the land allotted to the half-pay officers 

 was as thickly covered with wood. A few possessed limited means, and 

 were able to engage a help, to do some of the work, but in a short time it 

 was the same with all ; men of education, and who held high positions-, 

 rightly held the belief that it was an honour to be a refugee farmer. 



" At the close of the war a considerable number of the refugees found 

 safety in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. But a certain number, not 

 finding such prospects as they had hoped, resolved to try Canada. Con- 

 sequently, for five or six years after the peace, this class continued slowly 

 to flow, to swell the number of inhabitants of Upper Canada. Some of 

 them tarried, or remained in Lower Canada ; but the majority ascended 

 the Bay of Quinte, and settled the new townships at the head of the bay ; 

 not a few would remain for a year or two in the townships already settled, 

 working farms on shares, or ' living out,' until the future home was selected. 

 A good many of the first settlers in the sixth, seventh, and eighth town- 

 ships, had previously lived for awhile in the fourth township. 



" The advance of the settlements was along the bay, from Kingston town- 

 ship and Earnest town, westward along both sides. When the settlers in 

 the first, second, third and fourth townships, had, to a certain extent over- 

 come the pioneer's first difficulties, those in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and 

 ninth, were yet undergoing mostly all the same hardships and trials. Far 

 removed from Kingston, they could, with difficulty, procure necessities, 

 and consequently endured greater privation, and experienced severer hard- 

 ships ; but in time these settlers also overcome, and ended their days in 

 comparative comfort." 



What Dr. Canniff has accomplished in the volume before us for the 

 district and region of his birth, we should like to see done by compe- 

 tent persons elsewhere. The Bay of Quinte region is but one of the 

 sections of Upper Canada taken possession of and brought into cultiva- 

 tion at an early period. We have the Niagara District, the Home Dis- 

 trict, the Talbot Settlement, the Huron Tract. Each of these areas 

 might furnish an industrious writer with the materials for a volume. 

 Early local annals are not only interesting to the inhabitants of the 

 several regions in all subsequent time, but are also often of great use 

 to the general historian. Every year, however, that such collections 

 remain unmade, the difficulty^manifestly increases, of rendering them 

 as full and complete as they ought to be. 



Whenever a second edition is deuiunded by the public we should 

 advise a thorough revision of Dr. Canniff's work. The eye, at present, 

 is offended by flagrant misprints. The diction in several places wants 

 correction and finish. Our neighbours over the southern border are 

 sometimes spoken of in the strain of a by-gone age. These ebullitions 

 might with advantage be omitted or recast. The very singular and un- 

 accountable mutilation of the fine old historic name Bay of Quinte 

 should also certainly be remedied, wherever it occurs. This blemish is 



