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America. I shall lose all of that which is passed in the night time, but shall have several hours of morning light above Quebec.

I have been about town this forenoon and find Mon treal a busy place. Some of its streets are paved with stone, more with wooden blocks, and more yet are McAdamized. None of them, however, are in very good repair. The frost has evidently done hard service to them. Most of the sidewalks are plank, but in good condition. There are many fine stores in the city, and the merchants and clerks are accomplished in their trade. I noticed several splendid buildings as I passed about town, amongst which is the British Bank of North America, the Montreal Bank, &c. Most of the language I hear spoken is French-Canadian French. The boys at their play, the girls as they promenade the streets, and the clerks as they wait on customers, for the most part jabber in what I cannot understand. Montreal was originally established by the French, and retains its primitive character, maugre the English government that controls it.

The view from the Mountain in rear of the city is doubtless very fine; and if I can contrive to get on to it this afternoon, I must. It overlooks the whole city, the St. Lawrence river above and below, the adjacent country north, and the Ottoway river and valley there; and in passing up it, we see the estates and mansions of the dons of the city and the dignitaries of the British Government. The top of the mountain is a dense forest, and there is a Hotel in the midst of it.

It is a luxury to be put up at a good Temperance House. Since I left Boston, till I reached Montreal, I found nothing but rum taverns, and open bars in hotels and steamers; but friend Duclos is a religious man, a moral man, and of course a Temperance man; and I have seen no rum, nor heard any profane language since I have occupied his premises; this is no place for loafers and rowdies. His house has none but neat, orderly and intelligent patrons. I not only feel quieter, but decidedly safer thus lodged. I hear much praise accorded to Maine here, for the passage of the late liquor law and its approval by Gov. Hubbard. It is believed Maine can lead off as well as any State; and if she asserts the sovereignty of her Laws, and maintains them, her example will have a thrilling effect all over the Union, and all over the world. Gov. Hubbard is just the man to tell the people they must obey the Laws. I feel proud of my State, and hope that the motto on her coat of Arms Dirigo" will be main

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tained, not only politically, but educationally and morally. The Star in the East should lead the way, and guide the wise men of our nation to the place where Wisdom and Virtue are born.

LETTER IV.

DESCRIPTION OF QUEBEC.

The longest day in the writer's life Where Montgomery fell-Wolfe's Cove The Citadel, or Gibraltar of America The River St. Lawrence - Plains of Abraham-The Lower Town-Shores of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles-Ships in Quebec- Walls of the City-Suburbs Spot where Wolfe fell - His Monument and Inscription- Visit to the Citadel-Scotch Highland Regiment - An Artillery Regiment saluting the Queen's ascension - Streets. Shops, Taverns and Churches Proportion of Catholics - Fires and Plague in Quebec - Ship-building and Navigation- Account of Montgomery's death.

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QUEBEC JUNE 21, 1852.

THIS is the longest day in the year, being the Summer solstice, and the longest day of any year that I ever saw. Quebec is in latitude, north 46 deg. 49 m., consequently, between sunrise and sunset, there lack but 18 minutes of 16 hours. Byron, in his Don Juan, said the moon, modest as she is, sees more wickedness in three hours, than the sun beholds in the longest day of the year.

"There is not a day,

The longest, not the twenty first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way,

On which three hours of moonlight smiles."

But Byron did not remember, perhaps, that there are places on the earth- Quebec is not exactly one of them, where the world has not a chance for even three hours of moonlight villanies, —the sun monopolizing the whole of the live-long night; would there were no deeds of dark

ness where no darkness is! I shall never again see so long a day as this, till I reach that bright world of which the Sun of Righteousness is the light, and where neither sin nor darkness is ever known. In the faith of that world, God help me to live; in the hope of it, may he enable me to die.

I write this letter in a city which is rich not only in historic reminiscences, but as a spot sacred to American patriotism. That spot is a niche in the mountain walls of the Plains of Abraham, where our own Montgomery fell and closed his noble life with the closing year, Dec. 31, 1775. With a view to see the inscription which a few Yankees, some years ago, placed upon a tablet erected just over the fatal spot, which inscription is in these words, "HERE MONTGOMERY FELL, Dec. 31, 1775," — I wandered early this morning from the city proper up Champlain street, than runs along the base of this precipitous mountain wall, and upon the margin of the St. Lawrence river; and arriving at a gorge or ravine that seems to have been cut down the rocky precipice, I attempted myself to scale the wall and stand and sit upon a slaty shelf once moistened by the ebbing blood of Montgomery's heart. With effort I climbed the precipice; and here I sit, as in a seat cut out of the mountain side, projecting rocks encircling me on all sides but at the open south whence I look out upon the mighty St. Lawrence, down upon the busy street and wharves below me, and above to a clear heaven, in which a bright sun, unclouded, shines in glory upon one of the most enchanting landscapes that the American Continent can boast of. Behind me, the almost perpendicular wall of horizontally laid slaty strata rises three hundred feet to the bloody Plains of Abraham,

where Wolfe and Montcalm fell in the great battle of September 13, 1759. Montgomery was with Wolfe in that fight, sixteen years before.

At my right, the eye traces the straight line of this singular wall, laid with great exactness in Nature's masonry, till the view is broken by Wolfe's Cove, about three miles above, a basin cut into the land whence Wolfe ascended with his army to the Plains above where the long controversy for the control of America, between France and England, was decided in deadly strife. On my left, and nearly over my head, is the Citadel, a height higher than any of the other heights within the city, on which is the strongest fortification in the new world, and which commands the St. Lawrence at this point. The lower town, too, of the city, and the forests of masts that rise from the numerous ships which crowd the wharves and ride thickly in the stream, are bright in my eye as a clear sun smiles upon those busy scenes of commerce; and before me, the deep waters of the placid river St. Lawrence, a mile or more in width just here — (a narrower passage than usual, for the waters of the Great Western Lakes) — extends to the opposite banks of Point Levi, where Gen. Arnold encamped when he came through with his suffering army from Kennebec, to join Montgomery in the winter of 1775. That Point then was field and forest; now it is covered with stores and houses and churches and hospitals, and its wharves are lined with shipping. Two steam Ferry Boats are constantly passing from Point Levi to the city loaded promiscuously with coaches, caleches (pronounced calashes) and carts; horses, cattle and swine; gentlemen, ladies and Canadians. We have not

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