The Mrs. Murray mentioned in this letter was a cousin of Colonel Kempt. Brock, in one of his letters from Fort George, says, "Colonel Murray of the 100th went home last year and brought out a charming little wife, full of good sense and spirit. They dined with me yesterday." A letter from Colonel Baynes also mentions receiving a letter from Murray, and he congratulates General Brock on having found means to enliven the solitary scene that had so long prevailed at Fort George. Letters from home had cheered the general's heart. "What can I say," he writes, "from this remote corner in return for the pleasure I experience {143} at the receipt of your letters." He speaks of his life as sombre, and yet thinks that the enforced quiet has done his health good. He begs his brother Irving to dispel all fears about him. [Sidenote: A visit to York] He had just returned in February from York, where he had spent ten days with the lieutenant-governor, whom he pronounces "as generous and honest a being as ever existed." He found Mrs. Gore perfectly well and very agreeable. Their society, he said, was ample compensation for travelling over the worst roads he had ever met with. He and the governor, who had formerly been quartered with the 44th in Guernsey, had talked over old days in the Channel Islands, and had recalled with pleasure the simple hospitality that reigned there, and the charming society of Guernsey and Jersey, "where, although there was little communication with England, there were always officers in the garrison to be entertained." Brock writes of the reports from New York as to the many failures there, and says, "Merchants there are in a state of great confusion and dismay. A dreadful crash is not far off." The news he had received from Quebec was that Sir James had triumphed completely over the French faction in the Lower Province, and that the House of Assembly had passed every bill required of it, among others, one authorizing the governor-general and three councillors to imprison any one without assigning a cause. {144} The House of Assembly at Quebec had met on December 10th, 1810, and the inaugural address had been very conciliatory. The governor did not allude to any vexed questions, but protested that he had never doubted the loyalty and zeal of the previous assemblies he had convoked. In reply, the assembly observed, "We shall earnestly concur in all that is done tending to the maintenance of unbroken tranquillity, a state all the more difficult to preserve in this province as those who inhabit it cherish a diversity of ideas, habitudes and prejudices, not easy to reconcile." The governor justified the acts committed as to imprisonment of members, and said that only those who had too much reason to dread the law inclined to object to its potency, and the united clamour of such might have deceived the assembly as to their real number.