take in wood. This place is situated on the right bank of both rivers, at the confluence of the Sorel or Richelieu, (the only outlet of Lake Champlain,) with the St. Lawrence. The French built a fort here, which stands yet, if such bad palisades, barracks, and arsenals, deserve that name. The town itself was built in the year 1785, by the so called American tories and discharged soldiers. It contains two churches, about one hundred houses, and six hundred inhabitants, whose houses are mostly of wood, and stand separately in the streets, which are arranged in squares, and occupy a great space. It is built on a sandy soil, and has a poor aspect. Generally speaking, the towns in Canada bear a very poor comparison with those of the United States, and will never arrive at the same point, because the settlers in Canada are mostly poor Scotchmen and Irishmen, who come out at the expense of the government; they receive land, and are oppressed by the feudal system, which opposes all prosperity; emigrants, however, who possess some property, and have an ambitious spirit, settle themselves in the United States, where nobody is oppressed; on the contrary, where all the laws are in their favour.
At Fort Sorel is stationed a garrison, a detachment of the seventieth regiment, commanded by a sergeant; an artillery detachment which was moving to Montreal, tied its sloop to our steam-boat, and came on board; the artillerymen mostly intoxicated. Towards evening, we learned that the sloop contained three boxes of gunpowder, which caused us a great deal of uneasiness. The danger was so much the greater, as the sparks were continually flying from the pipe of the steam-boat, which the wind drove towards the sloop. I was one of the first who received the information, and immediately gave the alarm. All the passengers agreed in persuading the captain during this rainy and stormy night to remove the sloop some distance from our boat, and place in it an officer and three of the least intoxicated artillerymen. The night was dark, and we were compelled to cast anchor and remain till morning.
The next morning the weather was still cloudy and rainy; the storm was particularly strong, and the wind ahead. The machinery was too weak to make any progress. We therefore saw Montreal three hours before we could reach it; the current particularly was so strong between Montreal and the Isle of St. Helen, that in spite of the machinery we were driven backwards. At last we were obliged to draw up the boat by aid of six oxen, two horses, and ten men. The Lady Sherbrook, however, is one of the oldest steam-boats on the St. Lawrence, and the captain himself confessed that she was so rotten that she was not worth repairing, and will soon be condemned. About 4 o’clock in the afternoon, after we had been forty-six hours on our journey, which took but twenty-six hours going down, we were landed at Montreal. The battery on the Island of St. Helen saluted us with twenty-one guns. The first information we received was, that fifty houses were burned down yesterday in the suburbs of the town, and that this misfortune fell mostly upon the poorer class, whose houses were not insured.
Mr. Bingham, from Philadelphia, who married a rich heiress here, and turned Catholic to get possession of her estate, gave a ball to-day, in honour of the first birth-day of his only daughter, and politely invited our company. We accepted the invitation, and rode to the ball at 9 o’clock. He was twenty-four years of age, and his wife nineteen; has many friends, because his cellar is well filled, and has the talent to spend his money liberally among the people. We found assembled in his rich and tastefully furnished halls the whole fashionable world of Montreal. They mostly dance French contra dances, commonly called Spanish dances. To the contra dances, in honour of the officers of the seventieth regiment, who are the favourite young gentlemen, they have adopted tedious Scotch melodies; to the Spanish dances they played German waltzes. The native ladies conversed in very soft Canadian bad French, not even excepting our handsome landlady. I took particular notice of a Miss Ermatinger, the daughter of a Swiss, and an Indian woman, on account of her singular but very beautiful Indian countenance. She was dressed in the best taste of all, and danced very well. Indeed there was a great deal of animation at this ball, as well as a great deal of luxury, particularly a profusion of silver plate and glass in the house of Mr. Bingham, whose sister is the wife of the banker, Baring, of London.
CHAPTER IX
As the season was so far advanced, I wished to reach New York without delay. We therefore concluded to travel soon, and visit Lake Champlain to its southern extremity, then to Saratoga, Albany, and further down the Hudson to New York, taking the Catskill mountains by the way, and inspecting the famous military school of West Point. With this view, on Friday, the 9th of September, we went on board the steam-boat Montreal, which runs between Montreal and the right bank of the river. Lieutenant-Colonel M‘Gregor and Major Loring escorted us to the boat. In half an hour we found ourselves on the other side of the river. We landed near the village Longueuil, where stage-coaches awaited us, which carried us and our baggage to St. John, situated on the river Richelieu, about twenty-seven miles from Longueuil. The road lies several miles along the banks of the river St. Lawrence, till you arrive to the village of La Prairie. In this village we took our leave of this noble neighbourhood and majestic stream, on whose banks we had tarried so agreeably. The road led through a plain, which was very little cultivated, and containing few trees. We only met with a single village called Lavane. Here and there we observed some larch trees. About half past one in the afternoon, we reached the village of St. John, having arrived a mile from the above-named village, at the river Richelieu. Here we went on board the American steam-boat Phœnix, in order to sail for Whitehall. This vessel deserves the name, because the boat, whose place it supplies, was of the same name, and burned some years ago on Lake Champlain. The new Phœnix is commodious and clean, one hundred and twenty feet long, having machinery of forty-six horse-power. Both banks of the river were thickly timbered. Ten miles above St. John we reached an island called Isle Aux Noix, the last English strong post on Lake Champlain. The captain had the politeness to tarry here a short time, in order that I might survey the island and its fortifications.
Isle Aux Noix contains about ninety acres, and is very flat and swampy. The fort is called Fort Lenox, in honour of the late duke of Richmond; it consists of a regular square, with four bastions and two ravelins, and is built according to the system of Vaubans. On account of the swampy ground, the fortification which anciently stood here, is almost sunk. The revêtement is a half one, and formed of wood, as well as the scarp and counterscarp. The whole lower wall consists of roots of trees, mostly cedar, placed horizontally crosswise, and only those roots which constitute the revêtement stand upright. On the horizontal roots earth is thrown and rammed. The engineers believe that this costly work will stand thirty years. I however believe it would have been better if they had rammed the roots into the ground and put a grate upon that, and then a strong stone revêtement, or still better if they had arched it en décharge. The two ravelins, whose basis is also of wood, lie before the northern and southern front. Under the curtain of the eastern front, they have built casemates for the garrison. Near the gate in the wall are small arsenals, and on the inside of the fort stands the guard-house, which also contains the prison. The base of this fortification, as well as the few buildings which stand within, are bomb-proof. The houses are built of blue limestone which comes from the state of Vermont. A road covered with palisades surrounds the fort. I observed here palisades which can be knocked down backwards, and might be advantageous in case of accident, whilst I took a survey of this work, accompanied by Captain Reed of the seventieth regiment, who is commandant, and has already been in garrison here one year with his company, also by the two engineer officers. Northward of the fort stands the navy-yard, which is in the same situation as it was at the period of the treaty of Ghent. There were about twelve gun-boats under cover, and a frigate of thirty-six guns on the stocks, whose keel and skeleton has rotted ever since. A naval magazine, and the dwellings of the officers, overseers, and workmen of the wharf, stand behind the navy-yard. The two branches of the stream separating the island from the main land are tolerably small, and the shores are covered with trees.
Eleven miles above Isle Aux Noix we left Canada and again reached the territories of the United States. At the point where the river Sorel leaves Lake Champlain, and where we entered into the latter, the American government has erected
