He now, from motives of economy as well as to be near his surviving relatives, retired to Dunkirk; but the approaching revolution soon called him out again, and his promotion, which, though like that of Dugald Dalgetty, it was "dooms slow at first," did come at last. Now after thirty-seven years' hard service in the British Army, (to say nothing of fourteen in the French) in North America, the West Indies, South America, the Cape of Good Hope, Java and India, he found himself a Lieutenant-Colonel of a second battalion serving in Canada. Such is a brief memoir of my old commanding officer. He was a warm-hearted, hot-tempered, jovial, gentlemanly old veteran, who enjoyed the present and never repined at the past; so it may well be imagined that I was in high good luck with such a _compagnon de voyage_. Hearing that the American Army under General Wilkinson, was about to make descent on Canada somewhere about the lower end of Lake Ontario, we were determined to push on with all possible speed. The roads, however, were declared impracticable, and the only steamboat the Canadas then rejoiced in, though now they must possess nearly one hundred, had sailed that day, and was not expected to return for nearly a week; so it was determined we should try our luck in one of the wretched river craft which in those days enjoyed the carrying trade between Quebec and Montreal. Into the small cabin, therefore of one of these schooners we stowed ourselves. Though the winds were light, we managed to make some way as long as we could take advantage of the flood-tide, and lay by during the ebb; but after this our progress was slow indeed; not entirely from the want of a fair wind, but from the cursed dilatory habits of Frenchmen and their Canadian descendants in all matters connected with business. At every village (and in Lower Canada there is a village at every three leagues along the banks of the St. Lawrence) our captain had or made business--a cask of wine had to be delivered to "_le digne Curé_" at one place; a box of goods to "_M. le Gentilhomme de Magasin_" at another; the captain's "_parents_" lived within a league, and he had not seen them for six weeks,--so off he must go, and no prospect of seeing him any more for that day. The cottage of the cabin boy's mother unluckily lay on the bank of the river, and we must lay to till madame came off with confitures, cabbages and clean shirts for his regalement; then the embracing, and kissing, and bowing, and taking off red night caps to each other, and the telling the news and hearing it, occupied ten times the space that the real business (if any there was) could possibly require. And all this was gone through on their part, as if it was the natural and necessary consequence of a voyage up the River Saint Lawrence. Haste seemed to them quite out of the question; and it is next to impossible to get into a passion and swear at a Frenchman, as you would at a sulky John Bull, or a saucy