And well he might be satisfied. The men who were, according to the representations of his predecessor, not at all to be depended upon, in a case of emergency, had most readily, liberally, and loyally, met the demands of the public service. The men who feared martial law, and could not tolerate the withholding of the Habeas Corpus, came forward nobly to defend from outward attack the dominions of their king. The whole province was bursting with warlike zeal. A military epidemic seized old and young, carrying off the latter in extraordinary numbers. Montreal, Quebec, and even Kingston and Toronto teemed with men in uniform and in arms. The regular troops were moved to Montreal, and Quebec was garrisoned by the militia. At Montreal, even the militia turned out for garrison duty. And on the 6th of August, the whole militia were commanded to hold themselves in readiness for embodiment. A little of the zeal now began to ooze out. There never yet was a rule without an exception. In the Parish of Ste. Claire, some young men, who had been drafted into the embodied militia, refused to join their battalion. Of these, four were apprehended, but one was rescued, and it was determined by the able-bodied men of Pointe Claire to liberate such others of their friends as had already joined the depot of the embodied militia at Laprairie. Accordingly, on the following day, some three or four hundred persons assembled at Lachine. They had not assembled to pass a series of resolutions censuring the government for illegally and wantonly carrying off some of the best men of the Parish of Pointe Claire, nor did they express any opinion favorable to Mr. Madison and the Americans, but they had assembled to obtain, by force, the liberty of their friends about to be subjected to military discipline. It seemed to have been a misunderstanding, however. The infuriated parishioners of Pointe Claire, who would not be comforted, on being appealed to, to go to their homes, frequently raised the cry of "Vive le Roi." It might be supposed that the Ste. Claire people meant to wish a long and happy reign to His Imperial Majesty Napoleon, as Mr. Ryland shrewdly suspected. But that supposition was not entertainable for any considerable length of time, inasmuch as the people without any prompting intimated that they had been informed that the militia law had not been put into force, but that if the Governor should call for their services they were ready to obey him. The magistrates assured the people that the militia law was really to be enforced, and advised them to disperse. They refused to budge. Two pieces of artillery and a company of the 49th regiment, which had been sent for, to Montreal, now appeared at Lachine. Still the mob would not disperse. Accordingly, the Riot Act was read, and the artillery fired a ball high over the heads of the stubborn crowd, which, of course, whizzing harmlessly along, produced no effect upon the crowd, except that the eighty, who were