expands to a great breadth. Here it abounds with small islands, situated
so closely to each other, that it is impossible to think without
astonishment of large vessels, like those that go to Montreal, passing
between them: the channel through them is very intricate. This wide part
of the river is called Lac St. Pierre; the greatest breadth of it is
about four leagues and a half, and its length from the islands at the
head of the lake downwards about eight leagues. From hence to Quebec the
river is in no place more than two miles across, and in some parts it
narrows to the breadth of three quarters of a mile. The tide ebbs and
flows in the river within a few leagues of Lac St. Pierre; the great
expansion of the water at the lake, and the strong current which sets
out from it, prevents its action higher up.
From Montreal as far as the town of Trois Rivieres, which stands about
four leagues below Lac St. Pierre, the shores on each side of the St.
Lawrence are very flat; the land then begins to rise, and on the
south-east side it continues lofty the whole way down to Quebec. On the
opposite side, however, below Trois Rivieres, the banks vary
considerably; in some places they are high, in others very low, until
you approach within a few leagues of Quebec, when they assume a bold and
grand appearance on each side. The scenery along various parts of the
river is very fine: it is impossible, indeed, but that there must be a
variety of pleasing views along a noble river like the St. Lawrence,
winding for hundreds of miles through a rich country, diversified with
rising grounds, woodlands, and cultivated plains. What particularly
attracts the attention, however, in going down this river, is, the
beautiful disposition of the towns and villages on its banks. Nearly all
the settlements in Lower Canada are situated close upon the borders of
the rivers, and from this circumstance the scenery along the St.
Lawrence and others differs materially from that along the rivers in the
United States. The banks of the Hudson river, which are more cultivated
than those of any of the other large rivers there, are wild and desolate
in comparison with those of the St. Lawrence. For several leagues below
Montreal the houses stand so closely together, that it appears as if it
were but one village, which extended the whole way. All the houses have
a remarkably neat appearance at a distance; and in each village, though
it be ever so small, there is a church. The churches are kept in the
neatest repair, and most of them have spires, covered, according to the
custom of the country, with tin, that, from being put on in a particular
manner, never becomes rusty[31]. It is pleasing beyond description to
behold one of these villages opening to the view, as you sail round a
point of land covered with trees, the houses in it overhanging the
river, and the spires of the churches sparkling through the groves with
which they are encircled, before the rays of the setting sun.
Footnote 31:
The square plates of tin are nailed on diagonally, and the corners are
carefully folded over the heads of the nails, so as to prevent any
moisture from getting to them.
There is scarcely any part of the river, where you pass along, for more
than a league, without seeing a village and church.
[Sidenote: BATISCON.]
The second night of our voyage we landed at the village of Batiscon. It
stands on the north-west side of the river, about eighty miles below
Montreal. Here the shore is very flat and marshy, and for a considerable
distance from it the water is so shallow when the tide is out, that a
bateau even, cannot at that time come within one hundred yards of the
dry ground. Lower down the river the shore is in some places extremely
rocky.
The first habitation we came to at Batiscon was a farm house, where we
readily got accommodation for the night. The people were extremely
civil, and did all in their power to serve us. A small table was quickly
set out, covered with a neat white table cloth, and bread, milk, eggs,
and butter, the best fare which the house afforded, were brought to us.
These things may always be had in abundance at every farm house; but it
is not often that you can procure meat of any sort; in going through
Canada, therefore, it is customary for travellers to carry a provision
basket with them. The houses in Lower Canada are in general well
furnished with beds, all in the French style, very large, and raised
four or five feet high, with a paillasse, a mattrass, and a feather bed.
The houses for the most part are built of logs; but they are much more
compact and better built than those in the United States; the logs are
made to fit more closely together, and instead of being left rough and
uneven on the outside, are planed and white washed. At the inside also
the walls are generally lined with deal boards, whereas in the United
States the common log-houses are left as rough within as they are
without. One circumstance, however, renders the Canadian houses very
disagreeable, and that is the inattention of the inhabitants to air them
occasionally by opening the windows, in consequence of which they have a
close heavy smell within doors. As we travelled by land from Quebec to
Montreal, we scarcely observed ten houses the whole way with the windows
open, notwithstanding that the weather was very warm. If you ask the
people why they don’t let a little fresh air into their houses, their
constant answer is, as it is to all questions of a similar tendency, “Ce
n’est pas la maniere des habitans”—It is not the custom of the people of
the country.
[Sidenote: SUPERSTITION.]
Some of the lower classes of the French Canadians have all the gaiety
and vivacity of the people of France; they dance, they sing, and seem
determined not to give way to care; others, to appearance, have a great
deal of that sullenness and bluntness in their manners characteristic of
the people of the United States; vanity, however, is the ascendant
feature in the character of all of them, and by working upon that you
may make them do what you please. Few of the men can read or write; the
little learning there is amongst the inhabitants is confined to the
women: a Canadian never makes a bargain, or takes any step of
importance, without consulting his wife, whose opinion is generally
abided by. Both men and women are sunk in ignorance and superstition,
and blindly devoted to their priests. The following anecdote may serve
to shew how much they are so.
On the evening before we reached Quebec, we stopped at the village of
St. Augustin Calvaire, and after having strolled about for some time,
returned to the farm house where we had taken up our quarters for the
night. The people had cooked some fish, that had been just caught, while
we had been walking about, and every thing being ready on our return, we
sat down to supper by the light of a lamp, which was suspended from the
ceiling. The glimmering light, however, that it afforded, scarcely
enabled us to see what was on the table; we complained of it to the man
of the house, and the lamp was in consequence trimmed; it was
replenished with oil; taken down and set on the table; still the light
was very bad. “Sacre Dieu!” exclaimed he, “but you shall not eat your
fish in the dark;” so saying, he stepped aside to a small cupboard, took
out a candle, and having lighted it, placed it beside us. All was now
going on well, when the wife, who had been absent for a few minutes,
suddenly returning, poured forth a volley of the most terrible
execrations against her poor husband for having presumed to have acted
as he had done. Unable to answer a single word, the fellow stood aghast,
ignorant of what he had done to offend her; we were quite at a loss also
to know what could have given rise to such a sudden storm; the wife,
however, snatching up the candle, and hastily extinguishing it,
addressed us in a plaintive tone of voice, and explained the whole
affair. It was the holy candle—“La chandelle benite,” which her giddy
husband had set on the table; it had been consecrated at a neighbouring
church, and supposing there should be a tempest at any time, with
thunder and lightning ever so terrible, yet if the candle were but kept
burning while it lasted, the house, the barn, and every thing else
belonging to it, were to be secured from all danger. If any of the
family happened to be sick, the candle was to be lighted, and they were
instantly to recover. It had been given to her that morning by the
priest of the village, with an assurance that it possessed the
miraculous power of preserving the family from harm, and she was
confident that what he told her was true.—To have contradicted the poor
woman would have been useless; for the sake of our ears, however, we
endeavoured to pacify her, and that being accomplished, we sat down to
supper, and e’en made the most of our fish in the dark.
The village of St. Augustin Calvaire is about five leagues from Quebec,
at which last place we arrived early on the next morning, the fourth of
our voyage. When the wind is fair, and the tide favourable also, it does
not take more than two days to go from Montreal to Quebec.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+LETTER + XXIV.
_Situation of the City of Quebec.—Divided into Upper and Lower
Town.—Description of each.—Great Strength of the Upper Town.—Some
Observations on the Capture of Quebec by the English Army under
General Wolfe.—Observations on Montgomery’s and Arnold’s Attack
during the American War.—Census of Inhabitants of Quebec.—The
Chateau, the Residence of the Governor.—Monastery of the
Recollets.—College of the Jesuits.—One Jesuit remaining of great
Age. —His great Wealth.—His Character.—Nunneries.—Engineer’s Drawing
Room.—State House.—Armoury.—Barracks.—Market-place.—Dogs used in
Carts.—Grandeur of the Prospects from Parts of the Upper
Town.—Charming Scenery of the Environs.—Description of Montmorenci
Water Fall.—Of La Chaudiere Water Fall._
Quebec, August.
THE city of Quebec is situated on a very lofty point of land, on the
north-west side of the River St. Lawrence. Nearly facing it, on the
opposite shore, there is another point, and between the two the river is
contracted to the breadth of three quarters of a mile, but after passing
through this strait it expands to the breadth of five or six miles,
taking a great sweep behind that point whereon Quebec stands. The city
derives its name from the word Quebec or Quebeio, which signifies in the
Algonquin tongue, a sudden contraction of a river. The wide part of the
river, immediately before the town, is called The Bason; and it is
sufficiently deep and spacious to float upwards of one hundred sail of
the line.
[Illustration:
_A PLAN of the CITY of QUEBEC_
]
[Sidenote: QUEBEC.]
Quebec is divided into two parts; the upper town, situated on a rock of
limestone, on the top of the point; and the lower town, built round the
bottom of the point, close to the water. The rock whereon the upper town
stands, in some places towards the water rises nearly perpendicularly,
so as to be totally inaccessible; in other places it is not so steep but
that there is a communication between the two towns, by means of streets
winding up the side of it, though even here the ascent is so great, that
there are long flights of stairs at one side of the streets for the
accommodation of foot passengers.
The lower town lies very much exposed to an enemy, being defended merely
by a small battery towards the bason, which at the time of high tides is
nearly on a level with the water, and by barriers towards the river, in
which guns may be planted when there is any danger of an attack.
The upper town, however, is a place of immense strength. Towards the
water it is so strongly guarded by nature, that it is found unnecessary
to have more than very slight walls; and in some particular places,
where the rock is inaccessible, are no walls at all. There are several
redoubts and batteries however here. The principal battery, which points
towards the bason, consists of twenty-two twenty-four pounders, two
French thirty-six pounders, and two large iron mortars; this battery is
flanked by another of six guns, that commands the passes from the lower
town.
On the land side, the town owes its strength solely to the hand of art,
and here the fortifications are stupendous. Considerable additions and
improvements have been made to them since the place has been in the
possession of Great Britain; but even at the time when it belonged to
France, the works were so strong, that had it not been for the conduct
of M. de Montcalm, the French general, it is almost doubtful whether the
genius of the immortal Wolfe himself would not have been baffled in
attempting to reduce it.
[Sidenote: GENERAL WOLFE.]
Had M. de Montcalm, when the first intelligence of the British army’s
having ascended the Heights of Abraham was carried to him, instead of
disbelieving the account, and laughing at it as a thing impossible,
marched immediately to the attack, without giving General Wolfe time to
form his men; or had he, when the account was confirmed of the enemy’s
procedure, and of their having formed on the plain, waited for a large
division of his troops, whose station was below the town, and who might
have joined him in two hours, instead of marching out to give General
Wolfe battle with the troops he had with him at the time, the fate of
the day might have turned out very differently; or had he, instead of
hazarding a battle at all, retired within the walls of the city and
defended it, the place was so strong that there is reason to think it
might have held out until the approach of winter, when the British ships
must have quitted the river, and General Wolfe would consequently have
been under the necessity of raising the siege.
General Wolfe thought it a vain attempt to make an assault on the side
of the town which lies towards the water, where the rock is so steep,
and so easily defended; his object was to get behind it, and to carry on
the attack on the land side, where there is an extensive plain adjoining
the town, and not a great deal lower than the highest part of the point.
In order to do so, he first of all attempted to land his troops some
miles below the town, near the Falls of Montmorenci. Here the banks of
the river are by no means so difficult of ascent as above the town; but
they were defended by a large division of the French forces, which had
thrown up several strong redoubts, and, in attempting to land, Wolfe was
repulsed with loss.
[Sidenote: GENERAL ARNOLD.]
Above Quebec, the banks of the river are extremely high, and so steep at
the same time, that by the French they were deemed inaccessible. Foiled,
however, in his first attempt to get on shore, General Wolfe formed the
bold design of ascending to the top of these banks, commonly called the
Heights of Abraham. To prepare the way for it, possession was taken of
Point Levi, the point situated opposite to that on which Quebec stands,
and from thence a heavy bombardment was commenced on the town, in order
to deceive the enemy. In the mean time boats were prepared; the troops
embarked; they passed the town with muffled oars, in the night,
unobserved, and landed at a cove, about two miles above. The soldiers
clambered up the heights with great difficulty, and the guns were hauled
up by means of ropes and pullies fixed round the trees, with which the
banks are covered from top to bottom. At the top the plain commences,
and extends close under the walls of the city: here it was that the
memorable battle was fought, in which General Wolfe unhappily perished,
at the very moment when all his noble exertions were about to be crowned
with that success which they so eminently deserved. The spot where the
illustrious hero breathed his last is marked with a large stone, on
which a true meridional line is drawn.
[Illustration:
VIEW of CAPE DIAMOND
_J Weld del._
_Published Dec. 18. 1798, by J. Stockdale, Piccadilly._
]
Notwithstanding that the great Wolfe found it such a very difficult task
to get possession of Quebec, and that it has been rendered so much
stronger since his time, yet the people of the United States confidently
imagine, at this day, that if there were a rupture with Great Britain,
they need only send an army thither, and the place must fall into their
hands immediately. Arnold, after his return from the expedition against
the place, under Montgomery, in the year 1775, used frequently to
declare, that if he had not been wounded he should certainly have
carried it. But however that expedition may be admired for its great
boldness, it was, in reality, far from being so nearly attended with
success as the vanity of Arnold has led his countrymen to imagine.
All thoughts of taking the city by a regular siege were abandoned by the
Americans, when they came before it; it was only by attempting to storm
it at an unexpected hour that they saw any probability of wresting it
from the British. The night of the thirty-first of December was
accordingly fixed upon, and the city was attacked at the same moment in
three places. But although the garrison were completely surprised, and
the greater part of the rampart guns had been dismounted, and laid up
for the winter, during which season it was thought impossible for an
army to make an attack so vigorous that cannon would be wanting to repel
it, yet the Americans were at once baffled in their attempt. Arnold, in
endeavouring to force St. John’s Gate, which leads out on the back part
of the town, not far from the plains of Abraham, was wounded, and
repulsed with great loss. Montgomery surprised the guard of the first
barrier, at one end of the lower town, and passed it; but at the second
he was shot, and his men were driven back. The third division of the
Americans entered the lower town in another quarter, which, as I have
before said, lies very much exposed, by passing over the ice: they
remained there for a day or two, and during that time they set fire to
some buildings, amongst which was one of the religious houses; but they
were finally dislodged without much difficulty. The two divisions under
Montgomery and Arnold were repulsed with a mere handful of men: the
different detachments, sent down from the upper town against the former,
did not altogether amount, it is said, to two hundred men. Arnold’s
attack was the maddest possible; for St. John’s Gate, and the walls
adjoining, are stupendous, and a person need but see them to be
convinced that any attempt to storm them must be fruitless without the
aid of heavy artillery, which the Americans had not.
[Sidenote: CITADEL.]
Independent of what it owes to its fortifications, and situation on the
top of a rock, Quebec is indebted for much of its strength to the
severity and great length of the winter, as in that season it is wholly
impracticable for a besieging army either to carry on any works or
blockade the town.
It requires about five thousand soldiers to man the works at Quebec
completely. A large garrison is always kept in it, and abundance of
stores of every description. The troops are lodged partly in barracks,
and partly in block houses near Cape Diamond, which is the most elevated
part of the point, and is reckoned to be upwards of one thousand feet
above the level of the river. The Cape is strongly fortified, and may be
considered as the citadel of Quebec; it commands the town in every
direction, and also the plains at the outside of the walls. The evening
and morning guns, and all salutes and signals, are fired from hence.
Notwithstanding the great height of the rock above the river, water may
readily be had even at the very top of it, by sinking wells of a
moderate depth, and in some particular places, at the sides of the rock,
it gushes out in large streams. The water is of a very good quality.
No census has been lately taken of the number of houses and inhabitants
in Quebec; but it is supposed that, including the upper and lower towns
and suburbs, there are at least two thousand dwellings; at the rate of
six therefore to each house, the number of inhabitants would amount to
twelve thousand. About two thirds of the inhabitants are of French
extraction. The society in Quebec is agreeable, and very extensive for a
place of the size, owing to its being the capital of the lower province,
and therefore the residence of the governor, different civil officers,
principal lawyers, &c. &c. The large garrison constantly kept in it
makes the place appear very gay and lively.
The lower town of Quebec is mostly inhibited by the traders who are
concerned with the shipping, and it is a very disagreeable place. The
streets are narrow and dirty, and owing to the great height of the
houses in most of them, the air is much confined; in the streets next to
the water also, there is oftentimes an intolerable stench from the shore
when the tide is out. The upper town, on the contrary, is extremely
agreeable: from its elevated situation the air is as pure as possible,
and the inhabitants are never oppressed with heat in summer; it is far,
however, from being well laid out, the streets being narrow and very
irregular. The houses are for the most part built of stone, and except a
few, erected of late years, small, ugly, and inconvenient.
[Sidenote: GOVERNOR’S CHATEAU.]
The chateau, wherein the governor resides, is a plain building of common
stone, situated in an open place, the houses round which, form three
sides of an oblong square. It consists of two parts. The old and the new
are separated from each other by a spacious court. The former stands
just on the verge of an inaccessible part of the rock; behind it, on the
outside, there is a long gallery, from whence, if a pebble were let
drop, it would fall at least sixty feet perpendicularly. This old part
is chiefly taken up with the public offices, and all the apartments in
it are small and ill contrived; but in the new part, which stands in
front of the other, facing the square, they are spacious, and tolerably
well finished, but none of them can be called elegant. This part is
inhabited by the governor’s family. The chateau is built with out any
regularity of design, neither the old nor the new part having even an
uniform front. It is not a place of strength, as commonly represented.
In the garden adjoining to it is merely a parapet wall along the edge of
the rock, with embrasures, in which a few small guns are planted,
commanding a part of the lower town. Every evening during summer, when
the weather is fine, one of the regiments of the garrison parades in the
open place before the chateau, and the band plays for an hour or two, at
which time the place becomes the resort of numbers of the most genteel
people of the town, and has a very gay appearance.
Opposite to the chateau there is a monastery belonging to the Recollets
or Franciscan friars; a very few only of the order are now left.
Contiguous to this building is the college belonging to the Jesuits,
whose numbers have diminished even still faster than that of the
Recollets; one old man alone of the brotherhood is left, and in him are
centered the immense possessions of that once powerful body in Canada,
bringing in a yearly revenue of £. 10,000 sterling. This old man, whose
lot it has been to outlive all the rest of the order, is by birth a
Swiss: in his youth he was no more than a porter to the college, but
having some merit he was taken notice of, promoted to a higher
situation, and in the end created a lay brother. Though a very old man
he is extremely healthy; he possesses an amiable disposition, and is
much beloved on account of the excellent use he makes of his large
fortune, which is chiefly employed in charitable purposes. On his death
the property falls to the crown.
The nunneries are three in number, and as there is no restriction upon
the female religious orders, they are all well filled. The largest of
them, called L’Hospital General, stands in the suburbs, outside of the
walls; another, of the order of St. Ursule, is not far distant from the
chateau.
[Sidenote: QUEBEC MARKET.]
The engineer’s drawing room, in which are kept a variety of models,
together with plans of the fortifications of Quebec and other fortresses
in Canada, is an old building, near the principal battery. Adjoining
thereto stands the house where the legislative council and assembly of
representatives meet, which is also an old building, that has been
plainly fitted up to accommodate the legislature.
The armoury is situated near the artillery barrack, in another part of
the town. About ten thousand stand of arms are kept in it, arranged in a
similar manner with the arms in the Tower of London, but, if possible,
with greater neatness and more fancy.