520 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



from the flrni hope that, equally insensible to the impulse of popular feeling and the impulse of 

 power, you will pursue what is right. This has been the body of your decisions : may it be the 

 spirit of your counsels ! (Signed by fifty-two persons, residing in the Town and Township of 

 York.) The names not given. These words were addressed to Mr. Justice Thorpe. His reply 

 was couched in the following terms : " Gentlemen,* with pleasure I accede to your desire. If you 

 make me your representative I will faithfully discharge my duty. Your confidence is not 

 misplaced. May the first moment of dereliction be the la.st of my existence. Your late worthy 

 representative I lament from my heart. In private he was a warm friend ; at the Bar an able 

 advocate, and in Parliament a firm patriot. It is but just to draw consolation from our Gov- 

 ernor, when the first act of his administration granted to those in the U. E. list and their 

 children, what your late most valuable member so strenously laboured to obtain. Surely from 

 this we have every reason to expect that the liberal interests of our beloved sovereign, whose 

 chief glory is to reign triumphantly enthroned on the hearts of a free people, will be fulfilled, 

 honoring those who give and those who receive, enriching the Province and strengthening the 

 Empire. Let us cherish this hope in the blossom : may it not be blasted in the ripening." A 

 postscript is subjoined: "P.S. If influence, threat, coercion or oppression should be attempted 

 to be exercised over any individual, for tlie purpose of controlling the freedom of election, let 

 me be informed.— R. T." 



We now proceed on our prescribed course. So late as 1833 Walton in his "York Commercial 

 Directory, Street Guide, and Begister," when naming the residents on Lot Street, as he still 

 designates Queen Sti-eet, makes a note on arriving two park lots to the westv/ard of the spot 

 where we have been pausing, to the effect, that " here this street is intercepted by the grounds 

 of Capt. McGill, S. P. Jarvis, Esq., and lion. W. Allan: past here it is open to the Roman 

 Catholic Church, and intended to be carried through to the Don Bridge." 



The process of levelling up, now become so common in Toronto, has efl'ectually disposed of 

 the difficulty temporarily presented by tire ravine or ancient water-course, yet partially to be 

 seen either in front of or upon the park lots occupied by the old inhabitants just named ; and 

 Queen Street, at the present hour, is an uninterrupted thoroughfare in a right line, and almost 

 on a level the whole way, from the Don in the east to the Lunatic Asylum in the west, and 

 beyond on to the gracefully curving margin of Humber Bay. The unfrequented and rather 

 tortuous Britain Street is a relic of the deviation occasioned by the ravine, although the actual 

 route followed in making the detour of old was Duchess Street. 



XXVIII.— QUEEN STREET — DIGRESSION AT CAROLINE STREET- HISTORY OF 

 THE EARLY PRESS. 



A little to the south of Britain Street, between it and Duchess Street, near the spot where 

 Caroline Street, slightly diverging from the right line, passes northward to Queen Street, 

 there stood in the early day a long, low wooden structure, memorable to ourselves, as being, in 

 our school-boy days, the Government Printing Office. Here the Upper Canada Gazette was 

 issued, by "R. C. Home, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty." We shall have 

 occasion hereafter to notice among our early inhabitants some curious instances of change of 

 profession. In the present case, His Majesty's Printer, was in reality an Army Surgeon, once 

 attached to the Glengarry Light Infantry. And again, afterwards, the same gentleman was for 

 many years the Chief Teller in the Bank of Upper Canada. An incident in the troubles of 1837 

 was " the burning of Dr. Home's house," by a party of the malcontents who were making a 

 shew of assault upon the town. The site of this building, a conspicuous square two-story 

 frame family residence, was close to the toll-bar on Yonge Street, in what is now Y'orkville. 

 On that occasion, we are informed, Dr. Home "berated the Lieutenant Governor for treating 

 with avowed rebels, and insisted that they were not in sufficient force to give any ground of 

 alarm." 



The Uppei- Canada Gazette was the first newspaper published in Upper Canada. Its first 

 number appeared at Newark or Niagara on Thursday, the 18th of April, 1793. As it was 

 apparently expected to combine with a record of the acts of the new government some acconnt 



