"After fifteen years of unremitting labour and privation," says the Doctor, "it became so notorious in the province, that even the executive government at Toronto became aware that there was such a place as the Talbot Settlement, where roads were cut and farms in progress; and hereupon they rejoiced--for it held out to them just what they had long felt the want of, a well-settled, opened, and cultivated country, wherein to obtain estates for themselves, their children, born and unborn, and their whole kith, kin, and allies. When this idea, so creditable to the paternal feelings of these worthy gentlemen, was intimated to the Colonel, he could not be brought to see the fitness of things in an arrangement which would confer on the next generation, or the next again, the fruits of the labour of the present; and accordingly, though his answer to the proposal was not couched in terms quite so diplomatic as might have been wished, it was brief, soldier-like, and not easily capable of misconstruction; it was in these words--'I'll be d--d if you get one foot of land here;' and thereupon the parties joined issue. "On this, war was declared against him by his Excellency in council, and every means were used to annoy him here, and misrepresent his proceedings at home; but he stood firm, and by an occasional visit to the Colonial Office in England, he opened the eyes of ministers to the proceedings of both parties, and for a while averted the danger. At length, some five years ago, finding the enemy was getting too strong for him, he repaired once more to England, and returned in triumph with an order from the Colonial Office, that nobody was in any way to interfere with his proceedings; and he has now the pleasure of contemplating some hundreds of miles of the best roads in the province, closely settled on each side by the most prosperous farmers within its bounds, who owe all they possess to his judgment, enthusiasm, and perseverance, and who are grateful to him in proportion to the benefits he has bestowed upon them, though in many instances, sorely against their will at the time." The original grant must have been much extended; for the territory now under Colonel Talbot's management, and bearing the general name of the Talbot Country, contains, according to the list I have in his own handwriting, twenty-eight townships, and about 650,000 acres of land, of which 98,700 are cleared and cultivated. The inhabitants, including the population of the towns, amount to about 50,000. "You see," said he gaily, "I may boast, like the Irishman in the farce, of having peopled a whole country with my own hands."