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SIMCOE'S NEMESIS DORCHESTER

History deals with individuals as social beings.

Review Questions

Vocabulary:
contention, haughty, approbation, insubordination, legacy, adversary, embellish, conservatism, exaserbate, usurp, precipitate, antipathy, deference, conteract, blase, ambiguous, perquisite, circumvent, idealist. Review the following questions before reading the narrative, then provide written answers for each.

1. Compare and contrast Simcoe and Dorchester.

2. What characteristics in each man aggravated their stressful relationship?

3. How did the Colonial Office contribute to the ongoing friction and discord?

4. Explain: (a) shared power and antipathy; (b) even their leaving was linked by contention; (c) temperamentally incompatible; (d) a relationship defined by friction and frustration; (e) earn the approbation of their sovereign; (f) Simcoe's nemesis Dorchester; (g) chain of command; (h) sedition among the people; (h) sense of mission became a fixation; (i) the bane of his existence; (j) delineate spheres of authority; (k) produce the desired ambiguous effect..

5. These two men had strengths as well as weaknesses. What were they?

6. What was each man's legacy to Canada?

7. (a) Why did Dorchester order his wife to destroy his personal papers? What does this tell you about him? (b) How could 'history hound' him?

8. How has history judged these two men?

9. (a) In Dorchester's letter to the Colonial Office he speaks of insubordinations. Why? (b) What does he want London to do? (c) How does he try to convince them to act?

10. How were these to 'prancing pr-consuls' different from their successors?

11. Why would the construction of a small fort nearly "precipitate war" between the U.S. and Britian?

12. How does this narrative reflect the definition: "History deals with individuals as social beings"?

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