from the fort [across the river], and return thither in the evening. He lives in a noble and hospitable manner, without pride; his mind is enlightened, his character mild and obliging; he discourses with much good sense on all subjects; but his favourite topics are his projects, and war, which seem to be the objects of his leading passions. He is acquainted with the military history of all countries: no hillock catches his eye without exciting in his mind the idea of a fort which might be constructed on the spot; and with the construction of this fort he associates the plan of operations for a campaign, especially of that which is to lead him to Philadelphia. [Gen. Simcoe appears to have been strongly of the opinion that the United States were not going to be a permanency.] On hearing his professions of an earnest desire of peace, you cannot but suppose, either that his reason must hold an absolute sway over his passion, or that he deceives himself." _Travels_, i. 241. Other traits, which doubtless at this time gave a charm to the home-life of the accomplished Governor, may be gathered from a passage in the correspondence, at a later period, of Polwhele, the historian of Cornwall, who says, in a letter addressed to the General himself, dated Manaccan, Nov. 5th, 1803:--"I have been sorely disappointed, once or twice, in missing you, whilst you were inspecting Cornwall. It was not long after your visit at my friend Mr. Hoblyn's, but I slept also at Nanswhydden. Had I met you there, the _Noctes Atticæ_, the _Coenæ Deorum_, would have been renewed, if peradventure the chess-board intervened not; for rooks and pawns, I think, would have frightened away the Muses, familiar as rooks and pawns might have been to the suitors of Penelope." _Polwhele_, 544. The canvas-house above spoken of, had been the property of Capt. Cook the circumnavigator. On its being offered for sale in London, Gov. Simcoe, seeing its possible usefulness to himself as a moveable government-house purchased it. Some way to the east of the Commissariat store-houses was the site of the Naval Building Yard, where an unfinished ship-of-war and the materials collected for the construction of others, were destroyed, when the United States forces took possession of York in 1813.