It has been generally estimated that at the close of the struggle, and as a result, there were distributed of American Loyalists upon the shores of Canada, about 10,000. At the first, most of these were in Lower Canada, but there were likewise a few at the frontier forts upon the Upper waters, and a few detached squatters. Then, “there was not a single tree cut from the (present) Lower Province line to Kingston, 150 miles; and at Kingston there were but a few surrounding huts; and from thence all around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, with the exception of a few Indian huts on some desolate spot of hunting ground, all was a dense wilderness.” (Ex Sheriff Sherwood.) “A proclamation was issued,” says Croil in his history of Dundas, “that all who wished to continue their allegiance to Britain, should peaceably rendezvous at certain points on the frontiers. These were, Sackets Harbour, Carleton Island, Oswego and Niagara, on the Upper Canada confines; and Isle Aux Nois, on the borders of Lower Canada. Jessup’s Corps was stationed at Isle Aux Nois, and late in the autumn of 1783, the soldiers were joined by their wives and little ones, who had wandered the weary way on foot, to Whitehall, through swamps and forest,—beset with difficulties, dangers, and privations innumerable. The soldiers met them there with boats, and conveyed them the rest of their journey by water, through Lake Champlain. Imagination fails us when we attempt to form an idea of the emotions that filled their hearts, as families, that had formerly lived happily together, surrounded with peace and plenty, and had been separated by the rude hand of war, now met each other’s embrace, in circumstances of abject poverty. A boisterous passage was before them, in open boats, exposed to the rigors of the season—a dreary prospect of the coming winter, to be spent in pent up barracks, and a certainty should they be spared, of undergoing a lifetime of such hardships, toil and privation, as are inseparable from the settlement of a new country.” As soon as the journey was accomplished, the soldiers and their families, were embarked in boats, sent down to Richelieu to Sorel, thence to Montreal, and on to Cornwall, by the laborious and tedious route of the St. Lawrence. (See settlement of Ernest town.) CHAPTER VII.