d deprivation. In a country like that in which
Mr. Lount was settled, the inhabitants resided far apart, and consisted
generally of old, worn, and superannuated British officers, who, at the
close of the war, pitched their tents, for the last time, in the
wilderness. The sums which they obtained from the sale of their
half-pay, almost expended in the transportation of their little
families, before arriving on the lands assigned them by
government--unfitted, from their former pursuits, to bear the drudgery
their new course of life required, it was frequently the case, that
before they could raise anything from their lands, they became perfectly
destitute of the necessaries of subsistence. Too proud to seek
assistance, they would starve rather than communicate their situation;
but in Lount, their generous neighbour, they found one quick to discover
and prompt in affording relief, and he would minister to their wants
with such delicacy that the most sensitive would experience a pleasure
rather than the pang of wounded pride."--Theller's _Canada in 1837-38_,
vol. i., pp. 233, 234. I transfer these remarks, not because I have any
respect for Theller's personal testimony on any subject, but because in
the present instance his language clearly expresses the general
sentiment of the period with regard to Samuel Lount, and is confirmed by
the remembrance of many persons still living in and near Holland
Landing.

[188] 3 Wm. IV., c. 15, passed 13th February, 1833.

[189] In the preceding February Dr. Baldwin had thus written in reply to
a notification to attend as a delegate at the District Convention: "This
honour I beg leave to decline, and for this reason: that having
heretofore served the country to the utmost of my humble abilities as
their representative in Parliament, with the sincerest integrity of
purpose in maintenance of popular rights, unspotted, I trust, by one
single vote of a contrary tendency, I, together with many others of the
staunchest friends of those rights, experienced such extreme fickleness
of popular opinion that this conclusion has long been formed in my mind:
that the great body of the people of this Province (without doubt there
are many honourable exceptions), in no wise ignorant of their rights or
the great value of them, are nevertheless shamefully indifferent into
whose hands they commit their preservation and due exercise. Experience
alone must teach the people. This experience is coming to them