Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 21

A former Quebecer writes:--

OTTAWA, 17th May, 1876.

"At the beginning of this century only eighty square-rigged vessels entered the Port of Quebec. There were then in Quebec only nine importers, and half a dozen master mechanics, one s.h.i.+pyard (John Black's, where one s.h.i.+p was launched each year), one printing office and one weekly paper.

"The tide then washed the rear walls of the houses on the north part of Sault-au-Matelot street. The only deep water wharves were Dunieres, afterwards Brebaut's, Johnson & Purss', and the King's Wharf. There were no dwelling houses beyond Dunieres' Wharf, but a few huts were built at the base of the cape. A black man was the solitary inhabitant on the beach, and all the way to Sillery the woods extended to the water's edge. A lease of this beach might then have been obtained for 50 a year.

"In St. Roch's Suburbs there was no house beyond the Manor House near the Intendant's Palace, save a few straggling ones in St. Vallier and St. Roch's streets. The site of the present Parish of St. Roch was mostly occupied by Grant's Mills, by meadows and farms.

"In St. John Suburbs there were only a few houses on St. John and St.

George's streets and St. Louis Suburbs which, in 1775, contributed but three militia-men, viz--Jean Dobin, gardener, Jos. Proveau, carter, and Jacques Dion, mason, could boast of only one house, and the nearest one to it was Powell Place, Spencer Wood.

"On the St. Foy Road there was no house beyond the mineral well in St.

John Suburbs, until you came to the Haut Bijou--Mr. Stewart's. The population of the city was then estimated at 12,000.

"I wonder if your friend Col. Strange is aware that his old friend Sergt. Hugh McQuarters, of 1775 fame, was led captive to Hymen's altar by the winning smiles and bright eyes of a _belle Canadienne_, Mam'selle Victoire Frechette. She died on the 12th October, 1812.

"Not having seen a copy of the address of Henri Taschereau, Esq., M.P.

before the Canadian Inst.i.tute on the American Invasion of '75, I am not aware if he alluded to the facet that Captain and Paymaster Gabriel Elzear Taschereau took part in the '_l'affaire du Sault-au- Matelot_.'

"Thus, by degrees, you see some little odds and ends of Quebec history are coming to light.

"I remain, "(Signed,) C. J. O'LEARY.

"J. M. LEMOINE, Esq."

In the present day the prolongation of the wharf has left no trace of it; the Station of the North Sh.o.r.e Railway covers a portion of this area.

"Church" street (la rue de l'eglise), doubtless owes its name to the erection of the beautiful Saint Roch Church, towards 1812, the site of which was given by the late Honorable John Mure, who died in Scotland in 1823.

Saint Roch, like the Upper Town, comprises several _Fiefs_, proceeding from the _Fief_ of the Seminary and reaching as far as the Gas Wharf; the beaches with the right of fis.h.i.+ng belonged originally to the _Hotel-Dieu_ by a concession dated the 31st March, 1648, but they have since been conceded to others. The Crown possesses an important reserve towards the west of this grant; then comes the grant made, in 1814 or 1815, to the heirs of William Grant, now occupied by several s.h.i.+p-yards. Jacques Cartier who, in 1535-6, wintered in the vicinity of Saint Roch, left his name to an entire munic.i.p.al division of this rich suburb, as well as to a s.p.a.cious market hall. (The Jacques Cartier Market Hall.) The first secular priest, who landed in Quebec on the 8th August, 1634, and who closed his days in the Hotel-Dieu on the 29th November, 1668, Jean le Sueur de Saint Sauveur, left his name to what now const.i.tutes the populous munic.i.p.ality of Saint Sauveur. (Casgrain, _Historie de l'Hotel-Dieu_, p. 81.)

On the spot on which the General Hospital Convent was erected, in 1691, the four first Franciscan Friars, Peres Jamay, D'Olbeau, LeCaron and Frere Pacifique Du Plessis, who had landed at Quebec on the 2nd June, 1615, soon set to work to erect the first Church, the first Convent and the first Seminary in New France, and on the 3rd June, 1620, Father d'Olbeau, in the absence of Father Jamay, the Superior of the Mission, placed the first stone of the church, under the name of _Notre Dame des Anges_, on the 25th May, 1625. This was on the bank of the river which Jacques Cartier had called the River Ste. Croix, because he had landed there on the 14th September, 1535, the day of the exaltation of the Holy Cross: the Friars changed the name to that of St. Charles, in honor of "Monsieur Charles de Boues, Grand Vicaire _de Pontoise_," one of the most distinguished benefactors of their Order.

St. Vallier street, leading to ancient and Indian Lorette, over the Little River Road, at present so well built up and echoing to the shrill whistle of the Q. M. O. & O. Railway, until a few years back was a lone thoroughfare, beyond the toll-bar, lined with bare, open meadows. Here, also, has been felt the march of progress.

In the genial summer months pa.s.sers-by are admonished by a pungent, not unhealthy, odor of tannin, an effluvia of tamarac bark, that tanners and curriers have selected their head-quarters in St. Vallier street. History also lends its attractions to the venerable thoroughfare.

Our forefathers would tell of many cosy little dinners, closed, of course, with whist or loo--of many _recherche_ pic-nics in days of yore, kept up until the "sma' hours" at two renowned hostelries, only recently removed--the BLUE HOUSE and the RED HOUSE,--chiefly at that festive and crowning season of the year, when

"The snow, the beautiful snow,"

called forth the City Driving Club and its silvery, tinkling sleigh bells.

A steward--once famous as a caterer--on closing his term of service at the _Chateau_, with a departing Governor, more than a century back, was the Boniface at the Blue House: Alexandre Menut. A veritable Soyer was _Monsieur_ Menut. During the American invasion, in the autumn of 1775, Monsieur Menut, owing to a _vis major_, was forced to entertain a rather boisterous and wilful cla.s.s of customers: Richard Montgomery and his warlike Continentals. More than once a well-aimed ball or sh.e.l.l from General Carleton's batteries in the city must have disturbed the good cheer of the New York and New England riflemen lounging about Menut's, a great rebel rendezvous in 1775-6, we are told, visible from afar, [131]

"with its white flag flying on the house.

Arnold's head-quarters being close to the St. Charles, where Scott's Bridge was since built, the intervening s.p.a.ce between the city and the General Hospital was daily swept by Carleton's artillery. The Page Diaries abound with details of the casualties or narrow escapes of the invading host. A few quotations will suffice:

"8th December, 1775. Mr. (Brigadier-General) Montgomery visited Menut's to-day; a few minutes after he got out of the cariole, a cannon ball from the city walls killed his horse.

"18th December. Some sh.e.l.ls were thrown in to-day, and we threw some into St. Roch's: very few of the enemy seen anywhere to-day. A man was shot through the head from St. Roch; would it were destroyed; it serves as a secure cover to the rebels.

"26th January, 1776. Eighty loaded sleighs pa.s.sing towards Menut's.

Two field-pieces placed at the door; people pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing between that house and the General Hospital; some of our shots went through Menut's house; we fired a long time at that object; at last we perceived a man coming towards the town in a cariole, carrying the old signal; he pa.s.sed their guard-house and waved with his handkerchief; we took no notice of him, but fired away at Menut's, he turned about and went back. ... Perhaps, they find Menut's too hot for them.-- (_from Journal of an officer of the Quebec Garrison_, 1775-6, quoted in Smith's History of Canada, Vol. II.)

"21st February, 1776. Fired at their guard-house and at Menut's.

"23rd February. About four this morning we heard the enemy's drum at Menut's, St. Foix. Sentries saw rockets in the night."

Prince Edward street, St. Roch, and "Donnacona" street, near the Ursulines, the latter thus named about 1840 by the late Rev. Messire Maguire, then Almoner of the Ursuline Convent, bring up the memory of two important personages of the past, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, an English Prince, and Donnacona, a swarthy chief of primitive Canada, who welcomed Jacques Cartier.

The vanquisher of Montcalm, General Wolfe, is honoured not only by a statue, at the corner of Palace and St. John's streets, but again by the street which bears his name, Wolfe street. In like manner, his ill.u.s.trious rival Montcalm claims an entire section of the city, "Montcalm Ward." Can it be that the susceptible young Captain of the _Albemarle_, Horatio Nelson, carried on his flirtation with the captivating Miss Mary Simpson, in 1782, in the street which now rejoices in his name?

_NELSON IN QUEBEC_--1782.

"C'est l'amour qui fait le tour de la ronde."--OLD SONG.

"Though the "Ancient Capital," ever since 1764, rejoiced in an organ of public opinion--a chronicle of daily events, fas.h.i.+ons, city gossip, the _Quebec Gazette_,--one would look in vain, in the barren columns of that journal, for any intelligence of an incident, in 1782, which, from the celebrity in after-life of the chief actor, and the local repute of the reigning belle of the day, must have caused a flutter among the F. F. Q. of the period. We mean the tender attachment of Horatio (Lord) Nelson, commanding H. M. frigate _Albemarle_, 28 guns then in port,--his romantic admiration for Miss Mary Simpson, the youthful and accomplished daughter of Saunders Simpson (not "James,"

as Dr. Miles a.s.serts), the cousin of James Thompson, Sr., one of Wolfe's veterans. Traditions, venerable by their antiquity, told of the charms divine, of the conquests of a marvellously handsome Quebec beauty in the latter part of the last century: the _Catullus_ of 1783 thus begins his inspired lay in the _Quebec Gazette_ of that year:

'Sure you will rather listen to my call, Since beauty and Quebec's fair nymphs I sing.

Henceforth Diana in Miss S--ps--n see, As n.o.ble and majestic is her air; Nor can fair Venus, W--lc--s, vie with thee, Nor all thy heavenly charms with thee compare.'

"It was our fate first to attempt to unravel the tangles of this attractive web. In the course of our readings, in 1865, our attention had been drawn to a pa.s.sage in the life of Nelson by the Laureate of England, Robert Southey, [132] and enlarged on by Lamartine in the pleasant sketch he gave of the naval hero. Our investigations were aided by the happy memory of an old friend, now deceased: the late Lt.-Col. John Sewell, who had served in the 49th under General Brock, and whose birth was nearly contemporary with the visit of Nelson to our port in September, 1782. It was evident the chief biographers of the gifted sea captain ignored the details of his youthful attachment on our sh.o.r.es.

"'At Quebec,' says Southey, 'Nelson became acquainted with Alexander Davison, by whose interference he was prevented from making what would have been called an imprudent marriage. The _Albemarle_ was about to leave the station, her Captain had taken leave of his friends, and was gone down the river to the place of anchorage; when the next morning, as Davison was walking on the beach, to his surprise he saw Nelson coming back in his boat. Upon inquiring the cause of his re- appearance, Nelson took his arm to walk towards the town, and told him he found it utterly impossible to leave Quebec without again seeing the woman whose society contributed so much to his happiness, and then and there offering her his hand.' 'If you do,' said his friend, 'your utter ruin must inevitably follow.' 'Then, let it follow,' cried Nelson; 'for I am resolved to do it.' 'And I,' replied Davison, 'am resolved you shall not.' Nelson, however, on this occasion was less resolved than his friend, and suffered himself to be led back to the boat.'

"This led us to prepare a short 'Novelette' on the subject in the _Revue Canadienne_, in 1867, subsequently incorporated in the _Maple Leaves_: amended and corrected as new light dawned upon us in the _Tourists' Note Book_, issued in 1876, and _Chronicles of the St.

Lawrence_, published in 1878.

"Whether it was Alexander Davison, his tried friend in afterlife, as Southey suggests, or another Quebecer of note, in 1782, Matthew Lymburner, as Lt.-Col. John Sewell, on the faith of Hon. William Smith, the Historian of Canada, had stated to us, is of minor importance: one thing is certain, some thoughtful friend, in 1782, seems to have extricated the impulsive Horatio from the 'tangles of Neaera's hair' in the port of Quebec: the hand of fate had marked the future Captain of the _Victory_, not as the Romeo of a Canadian Juliet, but as the paramour of Lady Emma Hamilton. Alas! for his fair fame! It seems certain that the Commander of the _Albemarle_, during his repeated visits to our port, in July, September and October, 1782, became acquainted, possibly at some entertainment at Freemason's Hall,--the 'Windsor' of the period--with 'sweet sixteen'

(he himself was but twenty-four) in the person of Miss Mary Simpson, the blooming daughter of an old Highlandman, Sandy Simpson, a cousin to Mr. James Thompson, then overseer of works, and father of the late Judge John Gwalor Thompson, of Gaspe, and of late Com.-General James Thompson, of Quebec. Sandy Simpson was an _habitue_ of this historical and, for the period, vast old stone mansion where Captain Miles Prentice, [133] as he had been styled in 1775, hung out, with good cheer, the olive branch of Freemasonry and of loyalty to his Sovereign. The _bonne societe_ of Quebec, in 1782, was limited indeed: and it was not probable the arrival from sea of one of H.M.'s s.h.i.+ps of war, the _Albemarle_, could escape the notice of the leading men in Quebec.

"If the _Quebec Gazette_ of 1782 and _Quebec Herald_, published in 1789-90, contain no mention of this incident, several pa.s.sages in the correspondence [134] exchanged by the Thompson family with the early love of Nelson, when she had become a stately London matron, as spouse of Colonel Matthews, Governor of the Chelsea Hospital, throw light on his previous career in Quebec.

"The question as to whether Nelson's charmer was Miss Prentice or her cousin, Mary Simpson, which we submitted in the Tourists' Note Book in 1876 (see pages 26 and 36), we had considered as settled, in 1878, in favour of Miss Simpson, as the following pa.s.sage in the _Chronicles of the St. Lawrence_ shows:

"Here anch.o.r.ed (Island of Orleans), it would seem, Nelson's sloop of war, the _Albemarle_, in 1782, when the love-sick Horatio returned to Quebec, for a last farewell from the blooming Miss Simpson, a daughter of Sandy Simpson, one of Wolfe's Provost Marshals. Miss Simpson afterwards married Colonel Matthews, Governor of the Chelsea Pensioners, and died speaking tenderly of her first love, the hero of Trafalgar.' (_Chronicles of the St. Lawrence_, p. 198.)

"This _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_, as to dates, is not out of place, inasmuch as one of our respected historians, Dr. Hy. Miles, in a scholarly article, published March, 1879, three years after our mentioning Miss Simpson, labours under the idea he was the first to give her name in connection with Lord Nelson. Several inaccuracies occur in his interesting essay. Miss Simpson is styled the daughter of 'James'

Simpson, whereas she was the daughter of Saunders Simpson, a cousin of James Thompson, who had married a niece of Miles Prentice. In a foot note appended to his essay the Doctor states that 'just before the departure of our late popular Governor-General (Lord Dufferin), at a breakfast at the Citadel, where His Excellency entertained the Captains of the British war vessels _Bellerophon_ and _Sirius_ (he means the _Argus_ and the _Sirius_), then in port, at which we were present, the conversation having turned on former visits of commanders of s.h.i.+ps-of-war, when, Nelson's name being brought up, the Earl remarked that Mr. LeMoine (then present) was able to afford some information about him.' 'Mr. LeMoine,' adds Dr. Miles, 'at His Excellency's request, related what he had previously written, much to the satisfaction of his hearers.' Mr. LeMoine's account of the affair, however, as it is based on the now exploded doctrine that the heroine was one of the nieces of Mrs. Miles Prentice, was not, as has been shown in the foregoing article, the correct one, however gratifying to the distinguished listeners to its recital on that occasion.'

"As the correctness of the information we were asked to impart on this occasion is impugned by the learned historian, we will, we hope, be pardoned for setting this point at rest. Dr. Miles has committed some egregious, though no doubt unintentional, error. The publication in our _Tourist's Note Book_, in 1876, of the name of Miss Simpson, in connection with Captain Nelson, three years before the appearance of Dr. Miles' essay, which was published in March, 1879, and its repet.i.tion, as previously shown, in the _Chronicles of the St.

Lawrence_, issued in the beginning of the year 1878, can leave no doubt as to our knowledge of this incident, and disposes of the Doctor's statement. The name furnished by us was that of Miss Simpson, and no other. The breakfast in question took place on the 18th October, 1878: there were present Lord Dufferin, Mrs. Russell Stephenson, Mrs. J. T. Harrower, Very Rev. Dean Stanley, the Commander of H.M.S. the _Sirius_, Capt. Sullivan, the Captain of H.M.S. the _Argus_, Capt. Hamilton, A.D.C., and the writer."

Several streets in the St. Louis, St. John and St. Roch suburbs bear the names of eminent citizens who have, at different periods, made a free gift of the sites, or who, by their public spirit, have left behind them a cherished memory among the people, such as Berthelot, Ma.s.sue, Boisseau, D'Artigny, Grey, Stewart, Lee, Buteau, Hudon, Smith, Salaberry, Scott, Tourangeau, Pozer [135], Panet, Bell, Robitaille, Ryland [136], St. Ours [137], Dambourges [138]. Laval, Panet, Plessis, Seguin, Turgeon streets perpetuate the names of eminent Roman Catholic Bishops. Jerome street took this name from one of the ablest preceptors of youth the Quebec Seminary ever had--Messire Jerome Demers.

"Dorchester" Bridge was constructed in 1822, and took the place of the former bridge (Vieux Pont), on the street to the west, built by Asa Porter in 1789, and called after Lord Dorchester the saviour of Quebec. Saint Joseph street, St. Roch, was named after the eminent Roman Catholic prelate, Mgr. Joseph Octave Plessis, Bishop of Quebec, who, in 1811, built the church of St. Roch's suburbs, on land donated by a Presbyterian gentleman, John Mure, and dedicated it to St. Joseph, the patron saint of Canada. At one period it had a width of only twenty-five feet, and was widened to the extent of forty, through the liberality of certain persons.