Et si maintenant son pli vibre A nos remparts jadis gaulois, C'est an moins sur un peuple libre Qui n'a rien perdu de sea droits. Oublions les jours de tempêtes. Et, mon enfaut, puisqu' aujourd'hui Ce drapeau flotte sur nos têtes, Il faut s'incliner devant lui. "Le Drapeau Anglais."--_Fréchette._ It was early in the spring of 1802 that Isaac Brock with the 49th Regiment sailed up the St. Lawrence after a long and stormy journey across the Atlantic. One can well imagine the feelings of the young colonel as he gazed for the first time at the rocky height of Quebec crowned by that fortress, once the stronghold of French rule in America. In the forty years that had passed since the conquest, Quebec had changed but little. {34} There before him rose the craggy steep where Wolfe had climbed to victory. The grey wall, pierced with arched gateways and bristling with guns, still enclosed the town. On one side stood out the great cathedral whose bell had rung its summons for more than a century, regardless of the change of earthly monarchs. Here, too, was the Ursuline Convent to which Montcalm had been carried in his death agony. Above on the cliff rose the old, half-ruined Chateau St. Louis, bearing the traces of destruction by shot and shell. All spoke to Brock of stirring deeds which even then could be recounted by those who had taken part in them. He was fresh from fighting the French in the Old World, and the scene of England's triumph might well rekindle the ardour that a year's peace had not extinguished. Did a premonition come to him that on another height in this new land, he too would find fame and death? Perhaps not, for Brock was not given to much dreaming. He only knew that there was work to be done and as an apt pupil from the school of Nelson and Abercromby he was ready to do it in the best way possible. When Brock arrived in Canada the administration of affairs there was in the hands of Sir Robert Shore Milnes, the lieutenant-governor. Sir Robert Prescott, who had been governor and commander-in-chief from 1797, in succession to Lord Dorchester, had left Canada in 1799, and although he {35} held his rank as governor until 1807, he never returned to service in the country. [Sidenote: Canada's governors]