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Updated: May 25, 2025
Politically and socially one may include among the Loyalists the half-pay officers, from both navy and army, whom the great peace after Waterloo sent to Canada, as to the other colonies; and certain men of good family, Talbots or Stricklands, who held fast by English conservative tradition, played, where they could, the English gentleman abroad, and incidentally exhibited no mean amount of public spirit.
Pringle, I believe, at some time or other, had visited Wrentham; at any rate, the Stricklands, especially Susanna, were among his intimate friends, and, from what I heard, I could well believe, when, at a later period, I visited his grave in Bunhill Fields, what I found recorded there—that ‘In the walks of British literature he was known as a man of genius; in the domestic circle he was loved as an affectionate relative and faithful friend; in the wide sphere of humanity he was revered as the advocate and protector of the oppressed,’ who ‘left among the children of the African desert a memorial of his philanthropy, and bequeathed to his fellow-countrymen an example of enduring virtue.’ At the home of the Pringles the Stricklands made many literary acquaintances, such as Alaric Watts, and Mrs.
I think that I have gathered in the years that intervene between then and now a fair knowledge of mankind, but even if when I first met the Stricklands I had the experience which I have now, I do not believe that I should have judged them differently.
Here the Stricklands weathered the cold, damp winters, when the trees dripped and the creeks swelled, and here they watched the first emerald of spring breaking through the loam of a thousand autumns; here they hunted for iris and wild lilac in April, and hung Japanese lanterns through the long, warm summers.
I have pleasant recollections of them all, and of the annuals in which they all wrote, and a good many of which fell to my share. Like her sister, Susanna married an officer in the army—a Major Moodie—and emigrated to Canada, where the Stricklands have now a high position, where she had sons and daughters born to her, and wrote more than one novel which found acceptance in the English market.
Father and daughter turned to smile upon him, a tall, lean man, with a young face and a finely groomed head, and with touches of premature silver at his temples. He was very much at home here, had been their closest friend for many years. He was a bachelor, just entering his thirties, a fastidious, critical, exacting man by reputation, but showing his best side to the Stricklands.
Alison as to the agreeable time she had spent, and the latter said to me on coming in, “What did you get to say to Miss Strickland all this time? She says you were so agreeable, and she was two hours here.” “Say!” I replied with truth; “I assure you I did not say six words to her the whole time.”’ Agnes was a terrible one to talk—as, indeed, all the Stricklands were.
Then he married Mr. Brightley’s daughter, and became a partner in the firm, which was known as that of John and R. Childs, and, latterly of Childs and Son. ‘Uncle Robert,’ as I used to hear him called, was little known out of the Bungay circle. He had a nice house, and lived comfortably, marrying, after a long courtship, the only one of the Stricklands who was not a writer.
Now and then, it is true, the Stricklands talked of a charming young Quaker, who indeed once or twice called at our house to see Susanna when she was staying there; but Allan Ransome—for it is to him I refer—did not pursue literature or poetry to any great extent, and instead preferred to develop the manufacture of agricultural implements—a manufacture which, carried on under the same name, is now one of the chief industries of the busy and thriving town of Ipswich, and employs quite a thousand men.
John Galt, author of 'Laurie Todd, and other works of note in their day, of Mr. and Mrs. Jameson, who lived some years in Toronto, of the Stricklands, of Judge Haliburton, of learned divines, astute lawyers and politicians, and clever journalists, could not have been altogether behind older communities.
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