attles between the
English and French under Wolfe and Montcalm, and afterwards between
Murray and Montgomery, the latter the leader of the American revolters
and invaders. Montreal was regarded as the place of transit of the fur
trade from the Hudson's Bay Company to England.

Upper Canada was then unknown, or known only as a region of dense
wilderness and swamps, of venomous reptiles and beasts of prey, the
hunting grounds and encampments of numerous Indian tribes, intense cold
of winter, and with no other redeeming feature except abundance of game
and fish.[137]

The entire ignorance of the climate of Upper Canada which prevailed at
the close of the revolutionary war, may be inferred from the facts
stated in a succeeding chapter, when the British commander of New York,
being unable to transport any more Loyalists to Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, sent for a Mr. Grass, who had been a prisoner during the
French war for two or three years at Kingston, then Frontenac, to
inquire of him what sort of a country Upper Canada was, and whether
people could live there. Grass replied that he thought Upper Canada was
a good country, and that people could live there. The British commander
expressed much joy at the reply, and asked Mr. Grass if he would
undertake to conduct a colony of Loyalists to Canada; the vessels,
provisions, etc., would be furnished for that purpose. Mr. Grass asked
three days to consider the proposal, and at length consented to
undertake the task. It appears that five vessels were procured and
furnished to convey this first colony of banished refugee Loyalists to
Upper Canada; they sailed around the coast of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, and up the St. Lawrence to Sorel, where they arrived in October,
1783, and where they built themselves huts or shanties and wintered; and
in May, 1784, they prosecuted their voyage in boats, and reached their
destination, Cataraqui, afterwards Kingston, in July. The manner of
their settlement and providing for their subsistence is described in a
succeeding chapter.

Other bands of Loyalists made their way to Canada by land; some by the
military highway to Lower Canada, Whitehall, Lake Champlain,
Ticonderoga, Plattsburg, and then turning northward proceeded to
Cornwall; then ascending the St. Lawrence, along the north side of which
many of them settled. This Champlain route was the common one to Lower
Canada, descending the River Richelieu from St. John's to Sorel.

But