ea. But there were other public buildings in
Kingston, besides the Court House, gaol, and episcopal church. There
was a new catholic church, a barracks for the troops in garrison, an
hospital, and a residence for the commandant. The town consisted of 300
private dwelling houses, a number of warehouses and stores, about 50
shops, in which goods were sold, several public offices, a respectable
district school, a valuable library, mechanics' shops &c. The Court
House, gaol, Catholic Church, and the principal dwelling houses were
built of the bluish limestone obtained in large quantities in the
middle of the town; but were more substantial than elegant in design.
Kingston wanted a populous back country then, and still wants it
because the soil is stoney and not therefore so well adapted for
agricultural operations as the soils of other parts of the province.
The Upper, as well as the Lower province had profitted by the
circulation of army bills and by the requirements of the troops.
Government transactions had given a spirit to trade and industry, and
only for a system of government, which, as far as any government can
do, crushed enterprise and fettered trade, both provinces would have so
flourished immediately after the war that the reaction which the
withdrawal of a few troops produced would scarcely have been felt. As
matters stood the provinces were already flourishing, and schemes of
improvement were everywhere in contemplation. Steam navigation, which
had proved so useful on the St. Lawrence, and had, as it were, drawn,
the two chief cities of the Lower Province more closely together, was
about to be attempted on Lake Ontario. Already the keel of a steamboat,
to be 170 feet on deck, was in process of construction at the village
of Ernest-town, for certain gentlemen resident in Kingston. If
possible, the new boat was to transport both goods and passengers for
the whole extent between Queenston and Prescott. It was, however,
feared that the rough water of the lake would be too much for any
steamer to contend against. The Americans were also building a smaller
steamboat at Sackett's Harbour. A year later and the steamboat
_Walk-in-the-Water_, plied between Black Rock, near Buffalo and
Detroit, on Lake Erie, occasionally to Michillimackinac.

[30] Gourlay's Canada, page 523. vol. 1.

The legislative affairs of the Upper Province have as yet hardly
warranted comment. There were so very few people in the province fo