On crossing into the Canadian territory, he encounters one of those
evidences of popular liberty which belong to rather the American than
the English side. In the village of St John's, some of the party went
a-head to the principal inn, and as it was late at night, and their
knocking produced no effect, they appealed to what they regarded as the
most accessible of the landlord's susceptibilities, his pocket, by
saying that they were fourteen, more coming, with a whole host of
drivers. This appeal was the most unlucky possible, for the landlord had
another sensibility, the fear of being tarred and feathered, if not
hanged. On the door being opened at last, the landlord was not to be
found; his brother wandered about, the very ghost of despair. The
establishment was searched upside and downside, inside and outside, in
vain; and they began to think themselves the cause of some domestic
tragedy; but it must have been a late perpetration, for on looking into
his bed, they found the lair warm.
However, after a short time, mine host returned with a face all smiles.
The mystery was then explained. The election had taken place during the
day, and the landlord, having taken the part of the candidate who
eventually succeeded, was threatened with vengeance by the losing party.
The arrival of the travellers convinced him that his hour was come, and
he had jumped out of bed and hidden himself in some inscrutable corner.
But a good supper reconciled every thing.
The author crossed the ice to Montreal, and had a showy view of the
metropolis of the Canadas. A curious observation is suggested by
Montreal, on the different characters of the English and French
population. In the days of Wolf and Amherst, it was all French; but
John Bull, with his spirit of activity and industry, has quietly become
master of all the trading situations of the city, while the French have
as quietly retreated, and spread themselves through the upper sections
of it, to a great degree cut off from its commercial portions.
From Montreal the travel began. The heavy canoes were sent forward some
days before, under the charge of some of the Company's officers, the
light canoes waited for the author, with Colonel Oldfield, chief
engineer in Canada, who was going up the country on a survey of the
navigation, and the Earls of Mulgrave and Caledon, who were going to the
Red River, buffalo-hunting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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