ir muzzles from
him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the
weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.

The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.
Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the
side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of
receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two
hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it
behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him,
and ran and hid it in the cellar.

Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer
happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward,
and with his assistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners,
and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an
American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place,
hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.

I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government
granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward
Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.

Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling
on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the
settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the
Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.
Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered,
with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near
Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh,
and was condemned to a traitor's death.

From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in
consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is
still living.

The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pass Lundy's Lane,
Bloody Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore,
and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few
words concerning the Welland Canal.

The Welland Canal, the most important in a commercial point of view of
any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico,
which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that
other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere
job, or, as it was called, a job