posts, it was agreed that they should be surrendered on or before the first of June, 1796. This was finally done and the third and last flag floated lazily in the Lake Ontario breezes over the historic point. The settlers and traders within the jurisdiction of the posts were permitted to remain and to enjoy their property without becoming citizens of the United States unless they should think proper to do so. [Illustration: Fort Erie and the Mouth of the Niagara, by Pfister, in 1764. From the original in the British Museum.] Anthony Wayne's army now took full possession of the Niagara region. With the exception of a small strip of land on the river and lake, all the present State of Michigan was occupied by Indians--Pottawattomies, Miamis, Wyandots, Chippewas, Winnebagoes, and Ottawas. The first American commander of the post was Colonel John Francis Hamtramck, who died in 1803. At that period Detroit was headquarters of the Western Army, but the whole garrison only consisted of three hundred men. Niagara-on-the-Lake may be called the Plymouth Rock of upper Canada. It was once its proud capital. Variously known in the past as Loyal Village, Butlersbury, Nassau, and Newark, it had a daily paper as early as 1792, and was a military post of distinction at the same period, its real beginnings, however, being contemporaneous with the War of Independence. Here, within two short hours' ride of the most populous and busy city of western New York, typical of the material forces that have moulded the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we come upon a spot of intensest quiet, in the shadow of whose ivy-mantled church tower sleep trusted servants of the Georges, Loyalists and their Indian allies. The place has been overtaken by none of that unpicturesque commercial prosperity which further up the frontier threatens to destroy all the natural beauties of the river-banks. The Welland Canal and the Grand Trunk and Great Western Railway systems diverted the great part of the carrying trade, and with it that growth and activity which have signalised the neighbouring cities of Canada. "Refuse the Welland Canal entrance to your town," said the Commissioners, "and the grass will grow in your streets." Here General Simcoe opened the first Upper Canadian Legislature; and later, from here the noble Brock planned the defence of Upper Canada. While the cities of western New York, which have now far eclipsed it, were rude log settlements, at "Newark" some little attempt was made at decorum and society.