On the beach below the knoll, there continued to be, for a number of years, a row of cannon dismounted, duly spiked and otherwise disabled, memorials of the capture in 1813, when these guns were rendered useless by the regular troops before their retreat to Kingston. The pebbles on the shore about here were also plentifully mixed with loose canister shot, washed up by the waves, after their submersion in the bay on the same occasion. From the little eminence just referred to, along the edge of the cliff, ran a gravel walk, which led first to the Guard House over the Commissariat Stores, in a direct line, with the exception of a slight divergence occasioned by "Capt. Bonnycastle's cottage;" and then eastward into the town. Where ravines occurred, cut in the drift by water-courses into the bay, the gulf was spanned by a bridge of hewn logs. This walk, kept in order for many years by the military authorities, was the representative of the path first worn bare by the soft tread of the Indian. From its agreeableness, overlooking as it did, through its whole length the Harbour and Lake, this walk gave birth to the idea, which became a fixed one in the minds of the early people of the place, that there was to be in perpetuity, in front of the whole town, a pleasant promenade, on which the burghers and their families should take the air and disport themselves generally. The Royal Patent by which this sentimental walk is provided for and decreed, issued on the 14th day of July, in the year 1818, designates it by the interesting old name of Mall, and nominates "John Beverley Robinson, William Allan, George Crookshank, Duncan Cameron and Grant Powell, all of the town of York, Esqs., their heirs and assigns forever, as trustees to hold the same for the use and benefit of the inhabitants." Stretching from Peter Street in the west to the Reserve for Government Buildings in the east, of a breadth varying between four and five chains, following the line of Front Street on the one side, and the several turnings and windings of the bank on the other, the area of land contained in this Mall was "thirty acres, more or less, with allowance for the several cross streets leading from the said town to the water." The paucity of open squares in the early plans of York may be partly accounted for by this provision made for a spacious Public Walk.