ed in the
transport of the mail from Burlington in Vermont, via Montreal, to
Quebec; but yet there must have been wonderful progress from Governor
Murray's time,--during which a Mr. Walker, of Montreal, having caused
the military much displeasure, by the imprisonment of a captain for
some offence, was assailed by a number of assassins of respectability,
with blackened faces, who entered his house at night, cut off his right
ear, slashed him across the forehead with a sword, and attempted and
would have succeeded in cutting his throat, but for his most manly and
determined resistance--for on surrendering the government of Lower
Canada into the hands of General Prescott, previously to going home to
England, in the frigate "Active," in which he was afterwards wrecked on
Anticosti, he was lauded in a most obsequious address, by the
inhabitants both of Quebec and Montreal, the latter place then
numbering a little more than 7,000 inhabitants, for his "auspicious
administration of affairs, the happiness and prosperity of the province
having increased in a degree almost unequalled." General Prescott, not
long after Lord Dorchester's return home, in a frigate from Halifax,
after the wreck of the "Active," was raised to the Governor
Generalship. During the three years of this Governor's rule, nothing,
politically or otherwise, important occurred in Canada. Great Britain
was successfully engaged in war with both France and Spain, and in the
former country a revolution had occurred which preceded one of the most
terrible periods on the page of history. In Quebec, a madman named
McLane, a native of Rhode Island, fancying himself to be a French
General, conceived the project of upsetting British authority in
Canada. He intended, with the co-operation of the French Canadians, to
make a rush upon the garrison of Quebec. His imaginary followers were
to be armed with spears, and he dreamed of distributing laudanum to the
troops. Unfortunately for himself, he made known his plans to all and
sundry, and was rewarded for his indiscretion by being hanged on
Gallows Hill, as an example to other fools.

The next Governor of Lower Canada was Robert S. Milnes, Esquire. Under
his sway, something akin to public opinion sprang up. So soon as the
last of the Jesuits had been gathered to his fathers, it was the
purpose of the Imperial government to seize upon the estates of "The
Order." Mr. Young, one of the Executive Council, had, however, no
soone