That tongue of land called the peninsula, which is the protection wall of the harbour, was the resort only of wildfowl. The margin of the lake was lined with nothing else but dense and trackless forests. Two families of Massassagas had squatted somewhere in the neighbourhood of the present St. Lawrence Hall when General Simcoe removed to little York with his canvass palace, and drew around him the incipient features of a Court. The progress in material improvement in this country may be guessed at from the then condition and the present state and appearance of Toronto. The revenue of the country between 1775, and 1778, was not over L10,000. The salary of the Governor-in-Chief was only L2,500. [10] Then called Newark. During the American War, the Canadians, though they exhibited no signs of disaffection to Great Britain, did not ardently lend a helping hand against the enemy. Being appealed to by Middleton, the President of the Provisional Congress of Rebel States,--who told them that their Judges and Legislative Council were dependent on the Governor, and their Governor himself on the servant of the Crown in Great Britain; that the executive, legislative, and judging powers were all moved by nods from the Court of St. James; and that the Confederated States would receive their ancient and brave enemies on terms of equality--the Canadians stood firm in their new allegiance. It is more than probable, indeed, that the bombastic state paper never reached the ears of those for whom it was intended. There was no press in Canada at that period, and only one newspaper, the "Quebec Gazette," established by one Gilmore, in 1764. Unable, as the majority of the French were, to read their own language, it was not to be expected that they could read English. Still less is it to be supposed that His Excellency Lord Dorchester circulated it in French. Lord Dorchester was exceedingly prudent in his administration of affairs, and,--unlike Governor Murray, who, by the way, was succeeded in the administration of the Government by Paulus AEmilius Irving, Esquire, with Brigadier General Carleton for Lieutenant Governor, obtained the affection of one race and the resentment of the other,--conciliated both races. His lordship, in one of his speeches "from the throne," tells us that he "eschewed political hypocrisy, which renders people the instruments of their own misery and destruction." There was, in truth, no Parliament, in the proper sense of the term, then. Such artifices as are now necessary for good legislation, had not therefore to be resorted to.