did
not give much attention to politics, but devoted themselves to the
culture and enlargement of their farms, of which their descendants are
at this day reaping large advantages.[175]

Mr. McMullen, in his History of Canada, speaking of the year 1809, says:

"No civilized country in the world was less burdened with taxes than
Canada West at this period. A small direct tax on property, levied by
the District Courts of Session, and not amounting to L3,500 for the
whole country, sufficed for all local expenses. There was no poor rate,
no capitation tax, no tithes, or ecclesiastical rates of any kind.
Instead of a road tax, a few days' statute labour annually sufficed.
Nowhere did the working man find the produce of his labour so little
diminished by exactions of any kind. Canada West literally teemed with
abundance; while its people, unlike the early French and Americans, had
nothing to fear from the red man, and enjoyed the increase of the earth
in peace."

I have thus given a brief narrative of the formation of the government
of Upper Canada, and of the first seventeen years of its operations,
down to the period when the anticipated hostilities between Great
Britain and the United States--the latter being the tools of Napoleon to
rescue Canada from Great Britain--rendered preparation necessary on the
part of the Loyalists of Canada to defend their country and homes
against foreign invasion.

I have also given some account of the first settlement of the country,
and the privations and hardships of the first settlers. But believing
that a narrative from a single pen could not do justice to this subject,
or could present to the reader, in so vivid and interesting a light, the
character, sufferings, courage, and enterprise of our country's
forefathers and founders, as narratives from themselves, with the
diversity of style characteristic of communications from various
sources, I have therefore inserted in Chapter XLI. those interesting
papers transmitted to me from time to time, at my request, during the
last twenty years.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 171: But the Indians were friendly to white settlers, as they
have always been. Almost the entire Mohawk tribe, with other loyalist
Indians, under their chief, Joseph Brant, followed the fortunes of their
white loyalist brethren, and settled on their reservation on the Grand
River. Brant had been educated in a Christian school in Philadelphia;
had a comfortable home, and li