c and of
the people who were labouring to make it a success on the other side of
the border. The new parliament met in a wooden building nearly completed
on the sloping bank of the river, at a spot subsequently covered by a
rampart of Fort George, which was constructed by Governor Simcoe on the
surrender of Fort Niagara. A large boulder has been placed on the top of
the rampart to mark the site of the humble parliament house of Upper
Canada, which had to be eventually demolished to make place for new
fortifications. The sittings of the first legislature were not
unfrequently held under a large tent set up in front of the house, and
having an interesting history of its own, since it had been carried
around the world by the famous navigator, Captain Cook.

As soon as Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe assumed the direction of the
government, he issued a proclamation dividing the province of Upper
Canada into nineteen counties, some of winch were again divided into
ridings for the purpose of electing the sixteen representatives to which
the province was entitled under the act of 1791. One of the first acts
of the legislature was to change the names of the divisions, proclaimed
in 1788, to Eastern, Midland, Home, and Western Districts, which
received additions in the course of years until they were entirely
superseded by the county organisations. These districts were originally
intended for judicial and legal purposes.

The legislature met under these humble circumstances at Newark on the
17th September, 1792. Chief Justice Osgoode was the speaker of the
council, and Colonel John Macdonell, of Aberchalder, who had gallantly
served in the royal forces during the revolution, was chosen presiding
officer of the assembly. Besides him, there were eleven Loyalists among
the sixteen members of the lower house. In the council of nine members
there were also several Loyalists, the most prominent being the
Honourable Richard Cartwright, the grandfather of the minister of trade
and commerce in the Dominion ministry of 1896-1900.

SECTION 2.--Twenty years of political development (1792-1812).

The political conditions of the two decades from 1792 until 1812, when
war broke out between England and the United States, were for the
greater part of the time quite free from political agitation, and the
representatives of the people in both the provinces of Canada were
mostly occupied with the consideration of measures of purely provincial
and