ing the twenty years that elapsed between the
inauguration of the constitution of 1792 and the war of 1812, does not
require any extended space in this work. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, who
had distinguished himself during the war for independence as a commander
of the Queen's Rangers, was a skilful and able administrator, who did his
best to develop the country. It was during his regime that Toronto,
under the name of York, was chosen, by the influence of Lord Dorchester,
as the capital in place of Newark, which was too close to the American
frontier, although the Lieutenant-Governor would have preferred the site
of the present city of London, on the River {310} Thames, then known as
La Tranche. Mainly through his efforts a considerable immigration was
attracted from the United States. Many of the new settlers were loyal
and favourable to British institutions, but in the course of time there
came into the country not a few discontented, restless persons, having
radical and republican tendencies. Among the important measures of his
administration was an act preventing the future introduction of slaves,
and providing for the freedom of children of slaves then in the province.
Governor Simcoe devoted his energy not only to the peopling of the
province, but to the opening up of arteries of communication, of which
Yonge and Dundas Streets--still well-known names--were the most noted.
The founder of an important settlement in the west, an eccentric Irishman
of noble ancestry, Colonel Thomas Talbot, was a member of the
Lieutenant-Governor's staff, and eventually made his home in the western
part of the province, where he became a useful and influential pioneer.
Among the most desirable immigrants were the Scotch Highlanders, who
settled and named the county of Glengarry, and came to the country by the
advice of the energetic and able priest, Macdonell, afterwards the first
Roman Catholic bishop of Upper Canada. In Nova Scotia a number of Scotch
settled in Pictou county as early as 1773, and were followed in later
years by many others who found homes in the same district, in Antigonishe
and Cape Breton, where their descendants are still greatly in the
majority. In Prince Edward Island, Lord Selkirk, the founder of the
{311} Red River settlement, to whose history I shall refer in a later
chapter, established a colony of thrifty Scotch in one of the deserted
settlements of the French. Charlottetown was founded in those days