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very proper respect to the feelings of the French population; but so far as I can judge, they no longer consider the conquest as either a humiliation or a misfortune. It has given them the inestimable advantages of a free constitution, and completely delivered them from the miseries attendant on the endless contest between the British and French colonists. Had they been as sensitive on this point as some might suppose, the man of timber to whom I have alluded, would not have been allowed so long to occupy his niche in quietness; he is not much larger than the little highlander who has so long proffered his mull over the door of a snuff-shop in our native city, and is perched so low, that a tall fellow passing in the street might almost pull him down by the nose.

The fortifications of the city are not difficult to describe. On the south and east the precipice of rock on which the city stands is in most places perfectly inaccessible, while the more practicable points admit of easy and effectual defence. On the north, the banks of the St. Charles are low, shallow and muddy; effectually securing the town from the approach of ships of war, or the erection of hostile works; both of which, besides, would in this situation be under the fire of the batteries along the brow of the rock. The only vulnerable point is on the west, adjoining to the plains of Abraham.

The citadel, upon the highest part of Cape

8

Diamond, may be said to be the nucleus of the works which have been erected to protect this side of Quebec. No strangers, unless by very rare and special permission from the highest authorities, nor in general any but the military, are permitted to enter the citadel. I understand however that there is really nothing extraordinary to be seen. Its defences are of the strongest kind, its guns of the largest calibre; and magazines are embraced within

8 Cape Diamond is so called, from the circumstance that crystals of quartz, frequently very pure and regularly formed, are found in tolerable abundance between the layers of slaty rock on the brow of the precipice. They occur indeed in various directions round the town. Professor Silliman however informs us that hunting after them is not a very popular amusement. "As I was hammering," says he, "upon a rock, to which I had climbed, so far up one of the precipices that I was above the chimnies of the houses in the contiguous parts of the lower town, a man came running out, and with a French accent, and much vehement gesture and expostulation, conjured me to desist, unless I meant to bury him and his house in ruins, by causing the rocks to fall. I saw no danger, as the rocks appeared tolerably firm, but of course desisted and came down. Indeed so large a number of the houses in the lower town are built against the foot of the precipice, or very near it, that the rocks look as if they might at any time fall and crush them; it would seem as if they must of course do so should any of them give way. We were informed that a great mass fell recently, and much endangered many houses, but happily missed them; one house is said to have been crushed last winter, but I did not hear that any life was lost."-Tour between Hartford and Quebec, pp. 781, 2.

› Professor Silliman, by singular good fortune, obtained admission to the citadel, but I have heard that his success has been the cause of a subsequent more rigorous enforcement of the prohibitory statute. His remarks are, "this exclusion may be judicious as preventing nu

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its circuit, which might enable the garrison to make a final stand, even were the whole range of the outer works reduced by an enemy. The highest point within the citadel is Brock's battery, which was erected during last war, and commands it is said all the works on this side of the town From the citadel, which is immediately over the St. Lawrence, enormous walls cross the plain, extending down towards the St. Charles. These walls have all the additional aid of outer-works, ditch, glacis, and covered way. Strong bastions project at intervals; and in whatever direction you look, heavy cannon converge, so as to meet the assailant at every turn, both with a direct and a cross fire. There are two gates on this side, St. John's and St. Louis's; but every approach to them is fortified with such jealous care, that one cannot conceive a possibility of their ever being entered but by consent of the garrison. The wall at each gate is said to be about fifty feet in thickness. Within the walls and between

merous and troublesome visits, but it appears very unnecessary in a military point of view, for the more the strength of the citadel is made known, the less disposed, I am persuaded, will any enemy be to attack it. Commodore Bainbridge, during his recent visit here (I understand) was freely shown the citadel, and every part of the fortifications; and I heard a British officer say, that in his view it was quite ridiculous to pursue any other course, and to pretend to any secret about the thing. We were very forcibly struck with the formidable preparations, which seem, on all sides, to render an attack upon the place a hopeless enterprize."-Tour between Hartford and Quebec, p. 277.

the two gates is a fine sloping bank, or esplanade, of considerable extent, on which on the 4th of June I saw a feu de joie fired by the military, while the guns of the citadel re-echoed the discharge.

Other batteries and lines of defence are continued around the brow of the rock, on both sides, towards the lower town; but excepting in the neighbourhood of the Prescott gate, there appears to be comparatively little occasion for them. Between this gate and the St. Charles, is the grand battery, commanding the bay and a great part of the harbour.

Upon the whole, Quebec may be regarded as pretty nearly impregnable." The walls are so high that escalade is hopeless, so thick that a breach seems impracticable, and while Britain retains its naval superiority in the river, blockade is out of the question. The length and severity of the winter also act as a powerful auxiliary, for field operations could scarcely then be carried on. I have heard it indeed said, that in the winter nights

10 Professor Silliman says "An officer of the garrison informed us that it took him an hour and a half, merely to visit all the sentinels on duty, upon the various stations on the walls; this appears to evince that the walls cannot be much less than three miles in circuit; and the same military man gave it as his opinion that it would require at least ten thousand men for a complete garrison. -Going into a book store in Quebec, I observed in one of the gazettes of the city, a paragraph copied from a recent American paper, to this effect, that if it should be ever desirable to take Quebec, it could at any time be easily done, in two months, at the point

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the sentinels on the ramparts are relieved every fifteen minutes, so overpowering is the intensity of the cold.

The literary character of Quebec is, so far as I can judge, very much akin to that of Montreal; perhaps any difference that may be, is against Quebec. It is more of a sea-port town than the other, and many of the mercantile houses are merely branches of those in Montreal, conducted in general by the junior partners, and devoted to the superintendence of their Custom House transactions.

The same circumstances must influence in some measure the character of society; although as the seat of the colonial government, and a garrison town, it is likely to be more gay, in the gay season, than even Montreal; my opportunity however of observing domestic manners, has been extremely limited. The population is somewhat under that of Montreal.

To the aspect of the Protestant religion in

of the bayonet. Surely such a remark is indecent, with respect to a people with whom we are now in amity; and to any one who has ever seen Quebec, it appears superlatively ridiculous, and only exposes us to contempt :-an effort to take the moon at the point of the bayonet would be almost equally rational." Tour between Hartford and Quebec, p. 277, and Note. In the same volume pp. 282-291, is an interesting and apparently very accurate account of General Montgomery's unsuccessful attack on Quebec, in the commencement of the American revolutionary war; I regret that its length prevents me from extracting it.