The people of to-day will no doubt smile at these reminiscences of a past age, and think lightly of the life surroundings of these early pioneers of the Province. But it must not be forgotten that their condition of life was that of the first remove from the bush and the log cabin. There was abundance, without luxury, and it was so widely different from the struggle of earlier years that the people were contented and happy. "No people on earth," says Mr. Talbot, in 1823, "live better than the Canadians, so far as eating and drinking justify the use of the expression, for they may be truly said to fare sumptuously every day. Their breakfast not unfrequently consists of twelve or fourteen different ingredients, which are of the most heterogeneous nature. Green tea and fried pork, honeycomb and salted salmon, pound cake and pickled cucumbers, stewed chickens and apple- tarts, maple molasses and pease-pudding, gingerbread and sour-crout, are to be found at almost every table. The dinner differs not at all from the breakfast, and the afternoon repast, which they term supper, is equally substantial." The condition of the Province in 1830 could not be otherwise than pre- eminently satisfactory to its inhabitants. That a people who had been driven from their homes, in most cases destitute of the common needs of ordinary life, should have come into a vast wilderness, and, in the course of forty-six years, have founded a country, and placed themselves in circumstances of comfort and independence, seems to me to be one of the marvels of the century. The struggles and trials of the first settlers must ever be a subject of deepest interest to every true Canadian, and, as an illustration of the power of fixed principles upon the action of men, there are few things in the world's history that surpass it. It must be remembered that many, nay most, of the families who came here had, prior to and during the Revolutionary war, been men of means and position. All these advantages they were forced to abandon. They came into this country with empty hands, accepted the liberality of the British Government for two years, and went to work. Providence smiled upon their toils, and in the year of which I speak they had grown into a prosperous and happy people.