The _Caroline_ incident most closely connects the immediate Niagara region with the Patriot rebellion. This small steamer was chartered by Buffalo parties to run between that city, Navy Island, and Schlosser, the American landing above the Falls. The Canadian authorities very properly looked upon this as a bold attempt to provide the freebooters on Navy Island with the sinews of rebellion. Colonel Allan McNab was sent to seize the vessel, and the fact that it was found moored at the American shore in no way troubled the determined loyalists. It was about midnight December 29th when the attacking party found the ship. In the melée one man was killed; the boat was fired and set adrift in the river, passing over the Horseshoe Fall while still partly afire. Chapter XII Toronto It is believed that the word Toronto is of Huron origin, and that it signified "Place of Meeting." This has been contested; in any case it should be spelled _To-ron-tah_. The word is also interpreted as "Oak Trees beside the Lake," a derivation rather divergent from the above version and we must leave this to the learned etymologists. Glancing over maps of the middle of the eighteenth century designed after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), we see the names of many forts and posts intended to keep up "the communications" between Canada and Louisiana, and overawe the English colonies then confined to their narrow strip of territory on the Atlantic coast. Conscious of the mistake that they had made in giving up Acadia, the French at this moment claimed that its "ancient limits" did not extend beyond the isthmus of Chignecto--in other words, included Nova Scotia. Accordingly they proceeded to construct the forts of Gaspereau and Beauséjour on that neck of land, and also one on the St. John River, so that they might control the land and sea approaches to Cape Breton from the St. Lawrence, where Quebec, enthroned on her picturesque heights, and Montreal at the confluence of the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, held the keys to Canada. The approaches from New England by the way of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu were defended by the fort of St. John, near the northern extremity of the lake, and by the more formidable works known as Fort Frederick or Crown Point--to give the better known English name--on a peninsula at the narrows towards the South. The latter was the most advanced post of the French until they built Fort Ticonderoga or Carillon on a high, rocky promontory at the head of Lake St. Sacrament. At the foot of this lake, associated with so many memorable episodes in American history, Sir William Johnson erected Fort William Henry, about fourteen miles from Fort Edward or Layman, at the great carrying place on the upper waters of the Hudson. Returning to the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, we find Fort Frontenac at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where the old city of Kingston now stands.