At all periods of the Rebellion Talbot’s District provided much “sympathy.” Several men from Port Stanley set out to join the sympathisers who were making ready at Detroit. Their small vessel was provided with boiler and machinery, and they made fair headway until off a spot near the Lake Road, when the rudder gave way. In a frenzy of conscience the boat made for her own shore and stuck in the sand-bank. Just at that point there happened to be a small company of dragoons, who, when they saw the boat coming towards them, with armed men in it, divided into two parties and galloped off in opposite directions. The officer of the company, in two minds to go both ways at once, solved his difficulty by popping under an upturned canoe. The would-be saviours of their country in the rebel boat got clear of the sand-bank and made off, upon which the dragoons galloped back to look after their captain. After a careful search, for he was very coy, they found him under his canoe canopy, not a bad makeshift where umbrellas were not procurable. * * * * * There was scarcely a locality which did not give evidence that the rebel spirit had a lodgment not far off. But also in each there were martial spirits eager and willing to lead or be one of loyalist troops. Some of them tell their own stories so well that it would be a pity to garble or curtail them. One man describes how he gave up his professional work, as the winter and the Rebellion were coming on together. “... The political horizon at that time looked rather squally. The Rads. were holding frequent meetings in different parts of the country, at which loud and long speeches were made to the ignorant and wicked, until it broke out in a general rising among the disaffected portion--which was the largest portion of the County of York. In Simcoe the Rads. were fully half the population; but they did not turn out for fear of the other half, among whom were many fiery Orangemen. And to this Order I attribute the safety of our country, although many loyal men, not Orangemen, turned out in behalf of the Government. Without these men we should have failed, as, before troops could arrive from England, the Yankees would have flooded the country.