Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 93, No. 571, May, 1863Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 93, No. 571, May, 1863
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
“The following day” (the day after one of these mishaps) “brought
Captain Wallace to dine with the Governor, and it came out that he had
been hearing tales about his Excellency which he did not consider to
his advantage, for he suddenly asked him if he had not once been
shipwrecked. Sir Howard replied by telling the story, and the
captain’s face became longer as he proceeded, though he made no remark
till the close. He then observed that his regard for him was very
great, and he valued their interchange of hospitality in port and
ashore, but should never like to take him to sea again; for he had
been twenty years afloat without mishap, except on the two occasions
when they had been together; and he should now look upon his
appearance in his ship as a passenger as a very bad omen indeed.”
On both occasions the ship had struck for lack of proper beacons, and
Sir Howard at once applied the remedy. He caused lighthouses to be built
where they were most required; and in order to improve the internal
communications of the province, he made roads, and proposed a plan for
connecting by a canal the Bay of Fundy with the Gulf of St Lawrence.
Meanwhile he was not neglectful of the intellectual wants of the
colonists, as yet very imperfectly attended to. He founded, endowed,
and, after a good deal of opposition, obtained a charter for the
University of Fredericktown, of which, in 1829, he became the first
Chancellor, giving at the same time his own name to the College. These
were works of peace; and he was equally careful in guarding against the
chances of war. The treaty of 1783 had left the boundary-line between
Great Britain and the United States very imperfectly defined; and as the
inhabitants of the latter country increased in number, they began to
encroach on the territories of the former. A good many squatters had
forced themselves into New Brunswick, and been driven away, till at last
a person named Baker, bolder than the rest, took possession of an
outlying portion of land, and hoisted the American standard. The
proceeding was much approved by the Government of Maine, and strong
parties of the militia were turned out in anticipation of a collision
with the garrison of Fredericktown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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