preceded that of a school-house in Upper Canada, but the mill
and the tavern invariably preceded both." The roads were of the most
wretched character and at some seasons actually prohibitory of all
social intercourse. The towns were small and ill-built. Toronto, long
known as "muddy little York," had a population of about 10,000, but with
the exception of the new parliament house, it had no public buildings of
architectural pretensions. The houses were generally of wood, a few of
staring ugly red brick; the streets had not a single side-walk until
1834, and in 1838 this comfort for the pedestrian was still exceptional.
Kingston, the ancient Cataraqui, was even a better built town than
Toronto, and had in 1838 a population of perhaps 4500 persons. Hamilton
and London were beginning to be places of importance. Bytown, now
Ottawa, had its beginnings in 1826, when Colonel By of the Royal
Engineers, commenced the construction of the Rideau Canal on the chain
of lakes and rivers between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence at Kingston.
The ambition of the people of Upper Canada was always to obtain a
continuous and secure system of water navigation from the lakes to
Montreal. The Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario was commenced
as early as 1824 through the enterprise of Mr. William Hamilton Merritt,
but it was very badly managed; and the legislature, which had from year
to year aided the undertaking, was obliged eventually to acquire it as
a provincial work. The Cornwall Canal was also undertaken, but work was
stopped when it was certain that Lower Canada would not respond to the
aspirations of the West and improve that portion of the St. Lawrence
within its direct control. Flat-bottomed _bateaux_ and Durham boats were
generally in use for the carriage of goods on the inland waters, and it
was not until the completion of a canal system between the lakes and
Montreal, after the Union, that steamers came into vogue.

The province of Upper Canada had in 1838 reached a crisis in its
affairs. In the course of the seven years preceding the rebellion,
probably eighty thousand or one half of the immigrants, who had come to
the province, had crossed the frontier into the United States, where
greater inducements were held out to capital and population. As Mrs.
Jameson floated in a canoe, in the middle of the Detroit River, she saw
on the one side "all the bustle of prosperity and commerce," and on the
other "all the symptoms of apa