To a young officer fresh from a Mediterranean or home station--unless he were at Aldershot or the Curragh, perhaps--Quebec must appear rather dull. He has none of the excellent sporting for great and small game which India affords. Society presents itself under a new aspect. A people speaking a different language are not his servants, nor his kith and kin, and yet he must protect and fight for them. He has no sympathy with a nationality which is prouder of Montcalm than of Wolfe, and which claims, nevertheless, the lions and the harp as “_notre drapeau_.” So if he be unwise and unreasonable, he takes dislikes and ascribes every inconvenience he endures, not to the policy of the mother-country he serves, but to the people of the province. I was present one evening at a ball given by one of the ministers, a French Canadian, at which there was a large assemblage of all the best people in the city, and I was struck by the absence of young officers, although many of higher rank were present. A lady, to whom I mentioned the circumstance, said, “Oh! they rarely come among us, so we have left off asking them. If they do come, they stand with their backs against the wall criticising our style and our dresses, and never offer to dance till supper is over, when they vanish.” This is by no means universally applicable to all societies or regiments, but it is no doubt the truth in some instances. One must regret that the English language was not introduced into the law courts and legislature. Experience proves that there are no instruments so powerful in sustaining the existence of a nationality, as the tongue and pen. The Canadians of to-day affect to be French, more because they speak a French at which Paris laughs, than from any real sympathy founded on mutual interests or present history between France and Canada. I was assured by one earnest Canadian, that France had never forgiven the Bourbons for the fault of Louis XV., in ceding Canada to Great Britain. He had more reason probably for asserting that, but for the establishment of our supremacy in 1765, the rebellion of the thirteen colonies of North America would not have occurred when it did. But the conquest by Wolfe, confirmed by treaty, put an end to most cruel and barbarous massacres, outrages, and petty border wars, between the French and English settlers and their auxiliary tribes of Indians, and if it had been attended or followed by any wise and liberal acts of government, must have produced very great results on the tone and temper of the Canadian mind.