they had the effect of
turning towards this quarter the tide of suffering which was setting
in that direction. Even now, immigrants attempting to cross the
frontier from Canada are sent back, if they are either sickly or
paupers. On the whole, I fear that a comparison between the condition
of this province and that of the states of the neighbouring republic,
as affected by this year's immigration, would be by no means
satisfactory or provocative of dutiful and affectionate feelings
towards the mother-country on the part of the colonists. It is a case
in which, on every account, I think the Imperial Government is bound
to act liberally.

[Sidenote: Lord Palmerston's tenants.]

Month after month, the tide of misery flowed on, each wave sweeping deeper
into the heart of the province, and carrying off fresh victims of their
own benevolence. Unfortunately, just as navigation closed for the season,
a vessel arrived full of emigrants from Lord Palmerston's Irish estates.
They appear to have been rather a favourable specimen of their class; but
they came late, and they came from one of Her Majesty's Ministers, and
their coming was taken as a sign that England and England's rulers, in
their selfish desire to be rid of their starving and helpless poor, cared
nothing for the calamities they were inflicting on the colony. Writing on
November 12, Lord Elgin says:--

Fever cases among leading persons in the community here still continue
to excite much comment and alarm. This day the Mayor of Montreal
died,--a very estimable man, who did much for the immigrants, and to
whose firmness and philanthropy we chiefly owe it, that the immigrant
sheds here were not tossed into the river by the people of the town
during the summer. He has fallen a victim to his zeal on behalf of the
poor plague-stricken strangers, having died of ship-fever caught at
the sheds. Colonel Calvert is lying dangerously ill at Quebec, his
life despaired of.

Meanwhile, great indignation is aroused by the arrival of vessels from
Ireland, with additional cargoes of immigrants, some in a very sickly
state, after our Quarantine Station is shut up for the season.
Unfortunately the last arrived brings out Lord Palmerston's tenants. I
send the commentaries on this contained in this day's newspapers.[6]

[Sidenote: The flood subsides.]

From this time, however, the waters be