I am afraid that in this Lower Canada just now we do but occupy the position of a garrison. The aspect and the habit of the popular mind are foreign, but they are not French any more--at least modern French; rather are they of an Old-World France--of a France when there was an ancient faith and a son of St. Louis; when there was a white flag blazoned with fleur-de-lys, and a priesthood dominant--a France loyal, chivalrous, and bigoted, without knowledge and without railways, content to stand on ancient paths, and hating reform and active mutation. What a change has occurred since the old Bourbon struck the medal with its inscription, “Francia in Novo Orbe Victrix, Kebeca Liberata. 1690.” There may be many in Canada who cannot forget their origin and their race, kept alive in their memories by a common tongue, ancient traditions, and antipathy to a foreign rule exercised from a far-off land, and sometimes manifested by rude, rough instruments, and by a mechanism of force; but it would be well for them to remember that, whilst France has passed through many convulsions, Canada has been saved from external and internal foes, with the exception of the American invasion in 1812, and the troubles caused by her own disaffected people at a later period, whilst as an appanage of France she must have undergone incessant anxieties and assaults. She has been spared the agonies of the Revolution, the exhaustive glories and collapse of the Empire, the reaction of the “Desired one”--the consequences of the convulsions of 1830, of 1848, of 1852. Great Britain, too, is bound to remember that she is dealing with a brave and ancient race, delivered to her rule under treaty, who have, on the whole, resisted many temptations, and preserved a firm attachment to her government in the face of an aggressive and prosperous Republic. Our soldiers must be taught to respect the people of Canada as their equals and fellow-subjects--a hard lesson perhaps for imperious islanders, but not the less necessary to learn, if we would preserve their attachment and our territories. In justice to them I must say that the 60th Rifles gave no occasion to the people to complain, though Quebec is not destitute of its “rough” fellows, and of provocations; and that during my stay in Canada I only heard of one instance in which officers or men could be accused of indiscretion or want of respect for the people. Whiskey is shockingly cheap and atrociously bad, and public-houses are only too numerous, so that the base upon which the evils which afflict the soldier rest is not wanting here any more than at home.