  AND THEIR TIMES. BY THE REV. EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D., Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada from 1844 to 1876. This book is one of national importance. It is the most ample and minute account of the U. E. Loyalists and their Times which has hitherto been published. It describes very fully the early Colonial History of America, and traces the important distinction, often overlooked, between the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritan Fathers in New England, who maintained separate Governments for seventy years. The religious persecutions of the Quakers and other dissidents from Puritan creed and civil constitution are reviewed, and the stern intolerance of the latter is shown. The fortunes of the Colonies under the Long Parliament, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration, are carefully traced. The prolonged conflict between France and England for the possession of the Continent, with its battles, sieges, and adventurous campaigns is given in detail. The growing estrangement between Great Britain and the Colonies, and the stormy events of the Revolutionary War, are recounted. This epoch is very fully discussed from a British Loyalist point of view. The author avows his sympathy with the colonists in their assertion of their rights as British subjects, and avers his belief that but for their revolutionary Declaration of Independence they would within a twelvemonth have obtained all that they desired without the shedding of blood, without the unnatural alliance with France, much less a war of seven years. But the outbreak and conduct of the war are emphatically condemned. No portion of this history will be read with greater interest than that which describes the sufferings, in maintaining their allegiance to their King, of the U. E. Loyalist Founders and Fathers of Canada. For the first time, the full and detailed account of these sufferings is now published. The account of the early development and organization of the Government of the Maritime Provinces and of Upper Canada is full and minute. The stirring events of the War of 1812-15 are also given with much copiousness of detail. The grand patriotism of our country, struggling against tremendous odds, is amply asserted and illustrated. To this work the venerable author has devoted several of the best years of his life. Of U. E. Loyalist stock himself, he writes with hearty sympathy with his subject. He has devoted many years to the study of historical and constitutional questions. He has made laborious and extensive research. And he furnishes in these volumes copious documentary evidence of the validity of his assertions and conclusions. It is beautifully printed on extra calendered paper, and forms TWO HANDSOME OCTAVO VOLUMES, containing 1,055 pages, with Steel Portrait of the Author. Strongly bound
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