ut four of the Indians in
succession, and showed them how, and worked with them, to clear and
fence in, and plow and plant their first wheat and corn fields. In the
afternoon, I called out the school-boys to go with me, and cut and pile,
and burn the underbrush in and around the village. The little fellows
worked with great glee, as long as I worked with them, but soon began to
play when I left them.

In addition to my other work, I had to maintain a heavy controversy
with several clergymen of the Church of England on Apostolic Ordination
and Succession, and the equal civil rights and privileges of different
religious denominations.[9]

A few months after my appointment to the Credit Indian Mission, the
Government made the annual distribution of presents to the Georgian Bay
and Lake Simcoe Indians--all of whom were assembled at the Holland
Landing, on the banks of the Holland River, at the southwest extremity
of Lake Simcoe. They consisted chiefly of the Snake tribe, the
Yellowhead tribe (Yellowhead was the head Chief), and the John Aissance
tribe. Peter Jones and I, with John Sunday, had visited this tribe at
Newmarket, the year before, and preached to them and held meetings with
them, when they embraced the Christian religion, and remained true and
faithful. Peter Jones and myself attended the great annual meeting of
the Indians, and opened the Gospel Mission among them. In my first
address, which was interpreted by Peter Jones, I explained to the
assembled Indians the cause of their poverty, misery, and wretchedness,
as resulting from their having offended the Great Being who created
them, but who still loved them so much as to send His Son to save them,
and to give them new hearts, that they might forsake their bad ways, be
sober and industrious; not quarrel, but love one another, &c. I
contrasted the superiority of the religion we brought to them over that
of those who used images. This gave great offence to the French Roman
Catholic Indian traders, who said they would kill me, and beat Peter
Jones. On hearing this, Col. Givens, the Chief Indian Superintendent,
called them together and told them that the Missionary Ryerson's father
was a good man for the King, and had fought for him in two wars--in the
last of which his sons had fought with him--and that if they hurt one of
these sons, they would offend their great father the King; that Peter
Jones' father had surveyed Government lands on which many of the Indians