"I have made it my study to become acquainted with every part of the Province, with its views, its resources, and its advantages; but of your county I have had the satisfaction to obtain a more particular knowledge. "The high state of its cultivation, and the agricultural benefits attending it, should make you proud of the land on which you live. "Permit me, in return for your cordial address, to express my sincere wishes that your prosperity may continue, and that you may long live a free and happy people, under the best of governments. "GEORGE PREVOST." "_Government House, 16th Aug. 1811._" No. XXI.[105] _Address from the House of Assembly of Upper Canada to Sir George Prevost, March 1813, p. 75._ "May it please your Excellency, "We, his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Upper Canada in Provincial Parliament assembled, beg leave to congratulate your Excellency on your arrival in this Province, and to express the unfeigned satisfaction it affords us in as much as it is an additional proof of the high interest your Excellency takes in the general welfare of this colony. "We should be wanting to the sovereign, under whose paternal care we have so long lived, to our country and to ourselves, were we to neglect to offer to your Excellency at this time, the sentiments of gratitude with which we feel inspired for the marks of your attention manifested in providing clothing for a considerable portion of the loyal and brave militia of this Province, as well as for the active and vigorous exertions which have been made, and are now making for strengthening our marine force upon the Lakes, which will enable us to secure and preserve that superiority upon that favourite element to which Great Britain is indebted for her prosperity and glory; and on which our safety so materially depends. "Emerging from a state of infancy, the inhabitants of this province have been enabled, by the aid afforded them by your Excellency in his Majesty's regular forces, to defeat the designs of the enemy; although his numbers have been in every instance so superior. "To suppose your Excellency will not continue to extend every assistance to us in this emergency, would be the height of incredulity, after the testimony we have already witnessed of your vigilance and affectionate solicitude for our preservation. It would be superfluous, therefore, to suggest how much we stand in need of the fostering hand of our mother country--to be directed by the wisdom of your Excellency, in order that we may maintain the laws and constitution so dear to us, and which it is our sincere hope we may transmit unimpaired to our posterity.