Part 47 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XXIX.
THE HARBOUR: ITS MARINE, 1793-99.
The first formal survey of the harbour of Toronto was made by Joseph Bouchette in 1793. His description of the bay and its surroundings at that date is, with the historians of Upper Canada, a cla.s.sic pa.s.sage.
For the completeness of our narrative it must be produced once more. ”It fell to my lot,” says Bouchette, ”to make the first survey of York Harbour in 1793.” And he explains how this happened.
”Lieutenant-Governor, the late Gen. Simcoe, who then resided at Navy Hall, Niagara, having,” he says, ”formed extensive plans for the improvement of the colony, had resolved upon laying the foundations of a provincial capital. I was at that period in the naval service of the Lakes, and the survey of Toronto (York) Harbour was entrusted by his Excellency to my performance.”
He then thus proceeds, writing, we may observe, in 1831: ”I still distinctly recollect the untamed aspect which the country exhibited when first I entered the beautiful basin, which thus became the scene of my early hydrographical operations. Dense and trackless forests lined the margin of the lake and reflected their inverted images in its gla.s.sy surface. The wandering savage had constructed his ephemeral habitation beneath their luxuriant foliage--the group then consisting of two families of Mississagas,--and the bay and neighbouring marshes were the hitherto uninvaded haunts of immense coveys of wild fowl. Indeed, they were so abundant,” he adds, ”as in some measure to annoy us during the night.” The pa.s.sage is to be found in a note at p. 89 of volume one of the quarto edition of ”The British Dominions in North America,”
published in London in 1831.
The winter of 1792-3 was in Upper Canada a favourable one for explorers.
”We have had a remarkably mild winter,” says the _Gazette_ in its first number, dated April 18, 1793; ”the thermometer in the severest time has not been lower than nine degrees above zero, by Fahrenheit's scale. Lake Erie has not been frozen over, and there has been very little ice on Lake Ontario.” The same paper informs us that ”his Majesty's sloop, the _Caldwell_, sailed the 5th instant (April), from Niagara, for fort Ontario (Oswego) and Kingston.” Also that ”on Monday evening (13th) there arrived in the river (at Niagara) his Majesty's armed schooner, the _Onondago_, in company with the _Lady Dorchester_, merchantman, after an agreeable pa.s.sage (from Kingston) of thirty-six hours.” (The following gentlemen, it is noted, came pa.s.sengers:--J. Small, Esq., Clerk of the Executive Council; Lieut.-McCan, of the 60th regiment; Capt. Thos. Fraser, Mr. J. Denison, Mr. Joseph Forsyth, merchant, Mr. L.
Crawford, Capt. Archibald Macdonald,--Hathaway.)
Again, on May 2nd, the information is given that ”on Sunday morning early, his Majesty's sloop _Caldwell_ arrived here (Niagara) from Kingston, which place she left on Thursday; but was obliged to anchor off the bar of this river part of Sat.u.r.day night. And on Monday also arrived from Kingston the _Onondago_, in twenty-three hours.”
Joseph Bouchette in 1793 must have been under twenty years of age. He was born in 1774. He was the son of Commodore Bouchette, who in 1793 had command of the Naval Force on Lake Ontario. When Joseph Bouchette first entered the harbour of Toronto, as described above, he was not without a.s.sociates. He was probably one of an exploring party which set out from Niagara in May, 1793. It would appear that the Governor himself paid his first visit to the intended site of the capital of his young province on the same occasion.
In the _Gazette_ of Thursday, May 9th 1793, published at Newark or Niagara, we have the following record:--”On Thursday last (this would be May the 3rd) his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, accompanied by several military gentlemen, set out in boats for Toronto, round the Head of the Lake Ontario, by Burlington Bay; and in the evening his Majesty's vessels the _Caldwell_ and _Buffalo_, sailed for the same place.”
Supposing the boats which proceeded round the Head of the Lake to have arrived at the cleared spot where the French stockaded trading-post of Toronto had stood, on Sat.u.r.day, the 4th, the inspection of the harbour and its surroundings by the Governor and ”military gentlemen” occupied a little less than a week; for we find that on Monday, the 13th, they are back again in safety at Niagara. The _Gazette_ of Thursday, the 16th of May, thus announces their return: ”On Monday (the 13th) about 2 o'clock, his Excellency the Lieut.-Governor and suite arrived at Navy Hall from Toronto; they returned in boats round the Lake.”
It is probable that Bouchette was left behind, perhaps with the _Caldwell_ and _Buffalo_, to complete the survey of the harbour. (In the work above named is a reduction of Bouchette's chart of the harbour with the soundings and bottom; also with lines shewing ”the breaking of the ice in the spring.” His minute delineation of the pinion-shaped peninsula of sand which forms the outer boundary of Toronto bay, enables the observer to see very clearly how, by long-continued drift from the east, that barrier was gradually thrown up; as, also, how inevitable were the marshes at the outlet of the Don.)
The excursion from Niagara, just described, was the Governor's first visit to the harbour of Toronto, and we may suppose the _Caldwell_ and the _Buffalo_ to have been the first sailing-craft of any considerable magnitude that ever stirred its waters. In April, 1793, the Governor had not yet visited Toronto. We learn this from a letter dated the 5th of that month, addressed by him to Major-General Clarke, at Quebec. Gen.
Clarke was the Lieut.-Governor in Lower Canada. Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General himself, was absent in England. ”Many American officers,” Gen. Simcoe says to Gen. Clarke on the 5th of April, ”give it as their opinion that Niagara should be attacked, and that Detroit must fall of course. I hope by this autumn,” he continues, ”to show the fallacy of this reasoning, by opening a safe and expeditious communication to La Tranche. But on this subject I reserve myself till I have visited Toronto.”
The safe and expeditious communication referred to was the great military road, Dundas Street, projected by the Governor to connect the port and a.r.s.enal at Toronto with the Thames and Detroit. It was in the February and March of this very same year, 1793, that the Governor had made, partly on foot, and partly in sleighs, his famous exploratory tour through the woods from Niagara to Detroit and back, with a view to the establishment of this communication.
On the 31st of May he is writing again to Gen. Clarke, at Quebec. He has now, as we have seen, been at Toronto; and he speaks warmly of the advantages which the site appeared to him to possess. ”It is with great pleasure that I offer to you,” he says, ”some observations upon the Military strength and Naval convenience of Toronto (now York) [he adds], which I propose immediately to occupy. I lately examined the harbour,”
he continues, ”accompanied by such officers, naval and military, as I thought most competent to give me a.s.sistance therein, and upon minute investigation I found it to be, without comparison, the most proper situation for an a.r.s.enal, in every extent of that word, that can be met with in this Province.”
The words, ”now York,” appended here and in later doc.u.ments to ”Toronto,” show that an official change of name had taken place. The alteration was made between the 15th and 31st of May. No proclamation, however, announcing its change, is to be found either in the local _Gazette_ or in the archives at Ottawa.
Nor is there any allusion to the contemplated works at York either in the opening or closing speech delivered by the Governor to the houses of parliament, which met at Niagara for their second session on the 28th of May, and were dismissed to their homes again on the 9th of the following July. We may suppose the minds of the members and other persons of influence otherwise prepared for the coming changes, chiefly perhaps by means of friendly conferences.
The Governor's scheme may, for example, have been one of the topics of conversation at the levee, ball and supper on the King's birthday, which, happening during the parliamentary session, was observed with considerable ceremony.--”On Tuesday last, the fourth of June,” says the _Gazette_ of the period, ”being the anniversary of his Majesty's birthday, his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor held a levee at Navy Hall. At one the troops in garrison and at Queenston fired three volleys. The field pieces above Navy Hall under the direction of the Royal Artillery, and the guns at the garrison, fired a royal salute. In the evening,” the _Gazette_ further reports, ”his Excellency gave a Ball and elegant supper in the Council Chamber, which was most numerously attended.”
Of this ball and supper another brief notice is extant. It chanced that three distinguished Americans were among the guests--Gen. Lincoln, Col.
Pickering, and Mr. Randolph, United States commissioners on their way, _via_ Niagara, to a great Council of the Western Indians, about to be held at the Miami river. In his private journal, since printed in the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Collections, Gen. Lincoln made the following note of the Governor's entertainment at Niagara:--”The ball,” he says, ”was attended by about twenty well-dressed and handsome ladies, and about three times that number of gentlemen. They danced,” he records, ”from seven o'clock till eleven, when supper was announced, and served in very pretty taste. The music and dancing,” it is added, ”was good, and everything was conducted with propriety.” This probably was the first time the royal birthday was observed at Niagara in an official way.
Soon after the prorogation, July the 9th, steps preparatory to a removal to York began to be taken. Troops, for example, were transported across to the north side of the Lake. ”A few days ago,” says the _Gazette_ of Thursday, August the 1st, 1793, ”the first Division of his Majesty's Corps of Queen's Rangers left Queenston for Toronto--now York [it is carefully added], and proceeded in batteaux round the head of the Lake Ontario, by Burlington Bay. And shortly afterwards another division of the same regiment sailed in the King's vessels, the _Onondago_ and _Caldwell_, for the same place.”
It is evident the Governor, as he expressed himself to Gen. Clarke, in the letter of May 31, is about ”immediately to occupy” the site which seemed to him so eligible for an a.r.s.enal and strong military post.
Accordingly, having thus sent forward two divisions of the regiment whose name is so intimately a.s.sociated with his own, to be a guard to receive him on his own arrival, and to be otherwise usefully employed, we find the Governor himself embarking for the same spot. ”On Monday evening [this would be Monday, the 29th of July],” the _Gazette_ just quoted informs us, ”his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor left Navy Hall and embarked on board his Majesty's schooner, the _Mississaga_, which sailed immediately with a favourable gale for York, with the remainder of the Queen's Rangers.”--On the following morning, July 30, 1793, they would, with the aid of the ”favourable gale,” be at anchor in the harbour of York.