most sanguine expectations,
and I have but little doubt that its communications with the Ontario
and Erie will be found to be very practicable, the whole forming a
route which, in all respects, may annihilate the political
consequences of Niagara and Lake Erie. * * * My ideas at present
are to assemble the new corps, artificers, etc., at Cataraqui
(Kingston), and to take its present garrison and visit Toronto and
the heads of La Tranche, to pass down that river to Detroit, and
early in the spring to occupy such a central position as shall be
previously chosen for the capital."

On the 16th July, 1792, the name of the River La Tranche was changed to
the Thames by proclamation of the Governor, issued at Kingston. In the
spring, he had written that "Toronto appears to be the natural arsenal
of Lake Ontario and to afford an easy access overland to Lake Huron." He
adds: "The River La Tranche, near the navigable head of which I propose
to establish the Capital, by what I can gather from the few people who
have visited it, will afford a safe, more certain, and I am inclined to
think, by taking due advantage of the season, a less expensive route to
Detroit than that of Niagara."

At Quebec Simcoe had met the Hon. Thomas Talbot, who had joined the
24th Regiment as Lieutenant in the previous year. Talbot was then a
young man of twenty, whilst Simcoe was in his fortieth year. A strong
attachment sprang up between these two remarkable men, and Talbot
accompanied the lieutenant-governor to Niagara, in the capacity of
private and confidential secretary. After meeting the first Legislature
elected in Upper Canada during the fall of 1792 Simcoe decided to make
a journey overland to Detroit. He left Navy Hall on the 4th February,
1793, and returned on the 10th March. His travelling companions were
Capt. Fitzgerald, Lieutenant Smith (previously Secretary to the Detroit
Land Board, subsequently the first Surveyor General of Upper Canada, an
M.P.P., Speaker of the House, etc., and afterward created a baronet),
Lieutenants Talbot, Gray, Givens and Major Littlehales. All of these
were prominent afterward in the history of the Province. Talbot became
the founder of the Talbot Settlement. Gray was appointed Solicitor
General; he perished in the schooner 'Speedy' on Lake Ontario in 1804
with Judge Cochrane, Sheriff Macdonell and others. Givens was afterward
the well-known Colonel Givens, Superintendant