or two of
linen, a small lot of bed-clothes, etc., with a

"'Chest contriv'd a double debt to pay--
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.'

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is no fancy sketch, but one drawn from the
shadows of the past. You may find hundreds of similar adventures in the
past history of our country. Such was the first home of the young wife
whom I have mentioned. She had once lived in comfort, but by the fate
of war the home of a father and husband had been confiscated, and hence
they had sought for a dwelling-place in Canada, when England offered
other homes to those who had fought her battles. A grandchild of that
couple now stands before you.

"We can form no correct idea of the difficulties which beset these early
inhabitants, nor of the hardships and privations they endured. They were
not unfrequently reduced to the very verge of starvation, yet they
struggled on. Tree after tree fell before the axe, and the small
clearing was turned to immediate account. A few necessaries of life were
produced, and even these, such as they were, were the beginnings of
comfort--comfort indeed, but far removed from the idea we associate with
the term.

"But time rolled on. The openings in the forest grew larger and wider.
The log cabins began to multiply, and the curling smoke told a silent
but cheerful tale. There dwelt a neighbour, miles perhaps away, but a
neighbour nevertheless. The term bears a wide difference now-a-days. If
you would like an idea of the proximity of humanity and the luxury of
society in those days, just place a few miles, say six or eight, of
dense woods between you and your neighbour, and you may get a faint
conception of the delights of a home in the woods.

"There are some here, I presume, who have heard their parents or their
grandparents tell of the dreadful sufferings they endured the second
year after the settlement of the Bay of Quinte country. The Government
was to provide food, etc., for two years. It could hardly be expected
that men could go into the woods with their families, and clear up and
raise enough for their support, the first or even the second year. The
second year's Government supply, through some bad management, was frozen
up in the lower part of the St. Lawrence, and in consequence the people
were reduced to a state of famine. Men willingly offered pretty much all
they possessed for food. I could show you one of the finest farms in
Hay-bay that was offered to my