268 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



A noble race ! but tliey are gone, 



With their old forests wide and deep, 

 And we have built our houses upon 



Fields where their generations sleep. 

 Their fountains slake our thirst at noon, 



Upon their fields our harvest waves. 

 Our lovers woo beneath their moon — 

 Then let us spare at least their graves ! 



Vain, however, was the poet's appeal. Even the prosaic proclamations of the civil power 

 had but temporary effect. We q^uote one of them of the date of Dec. 14, 1797, having for iti 

 object the protection of the fishing places and burying grounds of the Mississaga Indians : 



" Proclamation. Upper Canada. Whereas, many heavy and grievous complaints have of late 

 been made by the Mississaga Indians, of depredations committed by some of his Majesty's 

 subjects and others upon theii- fisheries and burial places, and of other annoyances suffered by 

 them by nncivil treatment, in violation of the friendship existing between his Majesty and the 

 Mississaga Indians, as well as in violation of decency and good order : Be it known, therefore, 

 that if any complaint shall hereafter be made of injuries done to the fisheries and to the burial 

 places of the said Indians, or either of them, and the persons can be ascertained who misbe- 

 haved himself or themselves in manner aforesaid, such person or persons shall be proceeded 

 against with the utmost severity, and a proper example made of any herein offending. Given 

 under my hand and seal of arms, at York, this fourteenth day of December, in the year of our 

 Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, and in the thirty-eighth year of his Majes- 

 ty's reign. Peter BusseU, President, administering the government. By his Honor's command, 

 Alex. Burns, Secretary." 



As to the particular ancient burial-plot on the sandliill north of York, however, it may 

 perhaps be conjectured that prior to 1813 the Mlssissagas had transferred to other resting 

 places the bulk of the relics which had been deposited there. 



Off to the eastward of the sandy rise which we are ascending, was one of the early public nnr- 

 seiy gardens of York, Mr. Frank's. Further to the north on the same side, was another, Mr. 

 Adams'. Mr. Adams was a tall, oval-faced, fair-oomplexioned Scotchman. An establishment 

 of the same kind at York more primitive still, was tliat of Mr. Bond, of whom we shall have 

 •occasion to speak by and by. 



Kearsny House, Mr. Proudfoot's, the grounds of which occupy the site of Frank's nursery 

 garden, is a comparatively modern erection, dating from about 1845 ; an architectural object 

 regarded with no kindly glance by the ultimate holders of shares in the Bank of Upper Ca- 

 nada — an institution which in the infancy of the country had a mission and fulfilled it, but 

 which grievously betrayed those of the second generation who, relying on its ti-aditionary ster- 

 ling repute, continued to trust it. With Kearsny House, too, is associated the recollection, not 

 ■only of the president, so long identified with the Bank of Upper Canada, but of the financier, 

 Mr. Cassells, who, as a kind of dens ex macMnd, engaged at an annual salary of ten thousand 

 dollars, was expected to retrieve the fortunes of the institution, but in vain, although for a 

 series of years after being pronounced moribund it continued to yield a handsome addition to 

 -the income of a number of persons. 



Mr Alexander Murray, subsequently of Yoikville, and a merchant of the olden time at York, 

 •occupied the residence which preceded Kearsny House, on the Frank property. One desires, 

 in passing, to offer a tribute to the memory of a man of such genuine worth as was Mr. Murray, 

 although the singular unobtrusiveness which characterized him when living seems almost to 

 forbid the act. 



