REVIEWS. 271 



from official documents, and the records of legislative proceediugs. One fact is 

 certain : had not the project been of a character which nothing could destroy, it 

 ■would long since have irretrievably foundered. This Canal can be adduced as 

 one of the many proofs, how almost impossible it is to destroy that which has 

 inherent vitality. The honor of being its originator has been claimed by many ; 

 but it was precisely one of those projects which the situation itself suggests. The 

 earliest settled parts of Western Canada were those easiest of access to the new 

 United States, from which the United Empire Loyalists came. Thus both 

 Kingston and Niagara, two old French posts, had been resting points for years. 

 Their names figure largely in the French wars ; and as known and identified 

 localities, they attracted many who clung to the British flag even in its reverses. 

 Accordingly much of the early immigration came in by Newark — the present town 

 of Niagara — and the surrounding district was settled early in the history of 

 Western Canada. No one who had heard of the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal, 



" * The history of the Welland Canal, until the close of 1835, is contained in a report of the 

 Select Committee of the Upper Canada House of Assembly, appointed to enquire into its 

 management. It is a volume of 575 pages, and contains some very extraordinary revelations. 

 It does not fall within the scope prescribed to the writer to allude except in general terms 

 to this document. Its contents cannot be entirely ignored even here, and it will be a special 

 duty of the historian of the last fifty years to reproduce this Chapter in Canadian history. 

 It may be briefly stated that of a Committee of nine, seven signed the report, in which it is 

 stated that the books and accounts of the Company had been ' kept in a very careless, irreg- 

 ular and improper manner, highly discreditable to a public body.' That even on a partial 

 investigation there was a defalcation of upwards of £1724 ; that the clerks were only able 

 afterwards to account for £266 of this sum ; that an item of £579 paid to a director was 

 falsely entered in the accounts ; that unjustifiable expendituTe was entered into ; 'that the 

 sum of £447 10s.,' for loss on Steamboat Peacock. ' is enveloped in mystery ; ' that there 

 were irregularities anything but creditable to the Company's officers ; that the various sums 

 of £2500, £1000, £178 13s. 5d., £164 14s., and £100, ' were without any authority of the Board 

 given on loan to officers and directors ;' that a Secretary was appointed quite incompetent 

 for the discharge of his duties ; that improvident contracts were entered into, some of them 

 most shamefully performed to the serious injury of the Company ; that modes of raising 

 money without the approbation of the Directors ' was to say the least pf it, highly injudi- 

 cious, and might have involved the Company in serious difficulties ; that the officers of the 

 Company received water privileges, a proceeding stigmatized as highly improper ; that ia 

 1831 the Company sold to ' an alien,' through a third party all the lands of the Company, 

 amounting to nearly 15,600 acres for £26,000 ; that 18 months interest was paid and refunded 

 in the shape of water damages ; that in 1834 the Company resumed the land excepting 200 

 acres in Port Colborne and Allanburgh, cancelling the debt of £25,000, and giving bonds 

 with interest for £17,000 more. ' This transaction, to your Committee,' was " inexplicable : 

 no statement that they have heard has satisfied them of the justice or even expediency of an 

 arrangement which, if applied to the ordinary transactions of lift", would not only be deemed 

 ruinous, but the result of insanity.' Further, that large sums of money were missing ; that 

 a shorter route for the Canal might have been selected at less expense to the proprietors . 

 that the monies were expended improvidently ; that a debt of £30,000 was forgiven without 

 an equivalent ; that £1340 worth of timber was bought, and which was ' allowed to be stolen 

 and lost to the Company without one shillings worth ever being accounted for ;" that some 

 was sold without the Company receiving benefit from the sale, and that some was used by 

 contractors without the material being charged to them. 



" When it is added that everybody was exonerated from blame, and that not the least 

 stigma was ever attached to any of the public men who were included in the above proceed- 

 ings, further comment is useless. 



Vol. X. s 



