which
extends from the head of the Bay of Kenty upwards is
composed of persons who have evidently no claim to the
appellation of Loyalists.' In some districts it was a
cause of grievance that persons from the States entered
the province, petitioned for lands, took the necessary
oaths, and, having obtained possession of the land, resold
it, pocketed the money, and returned to build up the
American Union. As late as 1816 a letter appeared in the
Kingston _Gazette_ in which the complaint is made that
'people who have come into the country from the States,
marry into a family, and obtain a lot of wild land, get
John Ryder to move the landmarks, and instead of a wild
lot, take by force a fine house and barn and orchard,
and a well-cultivated farm, and turn the old Tory (as he
is called) out of his house, and all his labor for thirty
years.'

Never at any other time perhaps have conditions been so
favourable in Canada for land-grabbing and land-speculation
as they were then. Owing to the large amount of land
granted to absentee owners, and to the policy of free
land grants announced by Simcoe, land was sold at a very
low price. In some cases two hundred acre lots were sold
for a gallon of rum. In 1791 Sir William Pullency, an
English speculator, bought 1,500,000 acres of land in
Upper Canada at one shilling an acre, and sold 700,000
acres later for an average of eight shillings an acre.
Under these circumstances it was not surprising that many
Americans, with their shrewd business instincts, flocked
into the country.

It is clear, then, that a large part of the immigration
which took place under Simcoe was not Loyalist in its
character. From this, it must not be understood that the
new-comers were not good settlers. Even Richard Cartwright
confessed that they had 'resources in themselves which
other people are usually strangers to.' They compared
very favourably with the Loyalists who came from England
and the Maritime Provinces, who were described by Cartwright
as 'idle and profligate.' The great majority of the
American settlers became loyal subjects of the British
crown; and it was only when the American army invaded
Canada in 1812, and when William Lyon Mackenzie made a
push for independence in 1837, that the non-Loyalist
character of some of the early immigration became apparent.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LOYALIST IN HIS NEW HOME

The social history of the United Empire Loyalists was
not greatly different