The harbour is said to be excellent; there is a dockyard, which could be rendered capable of doing most of the work required for our light gunboats: and with the additions pointed out and urged by our engineer officers to the existing fortifications, Kingston could be made a position of as much military strength as it undoubtedly now is of strategical importance. Between Toronto and Kingston there are, however, Port Hope, Coburg, and Belville on the line of railway, all of which present facilities for the landing of an enemy: at any one of these points a hostile occupation would cut the regular communications at once; and indeed it is very much to be regretted, in a military point of view, that engineering, commercial, or other considerations caused the makers of the Grand Trunk Railway to run the line close to the shores of a great inland sea, the opposite side of which belongs to a foreign country which has from time to time announced (if not through the lips of statesmen, by the popular voice) that the conquest of Canada is a fixed principle in its policy. The Americans, whether by accident or design, have constructed the New York Central, which runs along the south coast, at a distance of many miles from Lake Ontario, but cross-lines connect it with the principal ports upon the lake, from Buffalo to Sandusky; their line runs tolerably close to the shore of Lake Erie higher up, but there is no position on that lake which has to fear the aggression of such a force as could be collected at Kingston. Perhaps to the generality of people in England, Kingston was first made known by the unpleasant incidence which compelled the Prince of Wales to pass it unvisited, or rather to remain on board the steamer. No doubt the Orangemen are now very sorry for what they did, and, in fact, feel that they were led by the fanaticism or the desire for notoriety of some small local leaders to make themselves very ridiculous and offensive. The zeal of these Defenders of the Faith was no doubt stimulated by the presence of a large number of Irish Roman Catholics, who are at least as violent as their opponents. The French-Canadians, with just as much fidelity to their faith, do not enter into the violent polemical, political, and miscalled religious controversies which led to such an unseemly result at Kingston; and certainly, it is much to be regretted that the peculiar influence of American institutions, which checks any attempt of religious parties to disturb the public peace or social relations for their own purposes and for the gratification of pride or lust of power, cannot be extended to the provinces and to the British Possessions, where they work such prodigious mischief.