Politically Kingston has become a dead body since 1844, when its short-lived career as the capital and seat of government was cut short. The military genius of the French occupants in early days, in seizing on the best positions for the defence and maintenance of their conquest, is shown still, by the fact that our forts occupy the sites of those which were originally constructed by them. More than a hundred years before there was any trace of a city at Kingston, or any building save the wigwam of the Indian or the log-huts of the soldiery, the Count de Frontenac built a fort in communication with the great system, from the St. Lawrence to the Ohio, of the French strongholds, which was destined to extend to the Mississippi, and to enclose the troublesome English Colonies within stringent limits. When this fort was captured by Colonel Bradstreet in 1756, the French had only established a kind of military colony and a very insignificant trading-post round the fort. In little more than twenty years subsequently, the present town was founded; and in the war with America the place became of very great consequence. It is a fact curious enough, and worthy of some consideration, that the great war in the middle of the last century, which ended in the loss to France of her hopes of Indian influence and of empire, and in the seizure of her American Colonies by Great Britain, should have, according to the best of American statesmen and philosophical reasoners, led also to the establishment of the United States, and the foundation of the greatest Republic the world has ever seen. Kingston commands the entrance to the Rideau Canal, one of the principal means of communication between Lake Ontario and the interior of the country, forming an admirable connection between the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario: it is, in fact, the most important means of inland intercourse, because the difficulties in the way of an enemy are very considerable, either in a direct attack upon Kingston, if properly fortified, or in a flank movement against it from the interior. The canal is brought into working order with the Grand Trunk Railway; so that if the Americans, our only possible enemy, were to make demonstrations against our frontier and our lines, with a view of intercepting our supplies and internal relations between the east and west of the province, it would be easy to disembark men and munitions at Kingston Mills and forward them by railway. Kingston, again, is an excellent point of observation, and with proper defences and aggressive resources, ought to command Lake Ontario and the entrance from the St. Lawrence. An adequate force stationed there, with a proper flotilla, could effectually keep in check any hostile demonstration from Cape Vincent, Sacket’s Harbour, or the other posts from Oswego to the western extremity of Lake Ontario.