including the
townships below Kingston on the river, east to the St. Francis
settlement; the others from Kingston, west to the head of the Bay of
Quinte. This will at once explain to you the reason why the old people
used to talk of first, second, third, fourth town, etc., as far back as
we can remember and up to the present. No names were given to the
townships by legal proclamation, as we said before, until long after
they were settled, and hence the habit was formed of designating them by
numbers.

"The settlement of the surveyed portion of the Midland district, so
named because of its then central position, commenced in the summer of
1784. The new settlers were supplied with farming utensils, building
materials, provisions, and some clothing, for the two first years, at
the expense of the nation; and in order that the love of country may
take deeper root in the hearts of these true men, the Government
determined to put a mark of honour, as the Orders of Council expressed
it, upon the families who had adhered to the unity of the empire, and
joined the Royal standard in America before the treaty of separation in
the year 1783. A list of such persons was directed in 1789 to be made
out and returned, to the end that their posterity might be discriminated
from the future settlers. From these two emphatic words, the Unity of
the Empire, it was styled the U.E. List, and they whose names were
entered upon it were distinguished as U.E. Loyalists. You are aware of
the fact that this was not a mere empty distinction, but was, in
reality, a title of some consequence; for it not only provided for the
U.E.'s themselves, but guaranteed unto all their children, upon arriving
at the age of twenty-one years, 200 acres of land free from all expense.
I always look back on these early acts of the English nation with the
fathers of this growing Canada with pleasure, and I venerate the memory
of those true and noble-hearted men, who loved their fatherland so well
that they even preferred to live under the protection of her flag in the
wild woods of Canada, and endure hunger and want, than enjoy the
comforts of home under the banner of a rebellious but now independent
people. And I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that we, the sons and
daughters of those whom our mother country was wont to honour, may never
love our country and its institutions less than they.

"Kingston is the oldest Upper Canadian town by many years. Here the
white man foun