CHAPTER XXXIV.
MY RETURN TO ROCHESTER.
Having closed my business in Wilberforce, I prepared to leave on the expiration of my term of office as township clerk, which was now near at hand.

Notwithstanding, I ever felt a sensation of relief and pleasure, when I thought of returning to my old home and friends in the States, yet as often as I look abroad over the settlement and remember all my glowing hopes,--all my delightful anticipations of a prosperous future for those poor, struggling colonists; when I recollected with what zeal and honest purpose, with what sincerity and sacrifice I had prosecuted my labor among them,--a dark shadow of disappointment would flit across my mind, however welcome it might be.

That I had firm and tried friends in the colony, I had never the least reason to doubt, not to suppose their number less after a five years residence with them; but our expectations had not been realized.

Our hope of settling a township, to be represented in Parliament by one of our own people, was now forever blasted.

I remembered too, that many of the colonists had been unjustly incited against my course; but in the retrospect my heart did not condemn me.