Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 69

Ye sons of pity, whose kind acts proclaim How much you glory in true English fame, In fame which rests on deeds of solid worth And kindred feelings for the peopled earth: Ye too, fair dames, whose daily conduct shows How much ye feel in heart, for others woes Who by compa.s.sion led, have hither come To grace these walls and soften mis'rys doom, We bid you welcome all--and what you see [_Looking around the House_]

Thus dedicate to you and charity [_Bowing to the audience_]

By the kind bounty which you now bestow You will a.s.suage the pangs of human woe, To infant suffering and to aged grief You will afford prompt solace and relief, The famished penitent who stole for bread s.n.a.t.c.hed from his wants will once more raise his head The sickly wretch upon his bed of straw Will pine no longer, but will quickly draw From your resources, the comfort he requires To sooth his pains, and quench a fever's fires; And houseless strangers will no longer meet Their fete in storms, and perish in the street.

[51] See appendix for list of executions.

[52] The Earl of Dalhousie, Sir James Kempt, John Adams, Edmund William Romer Antrobus, Charles Ardouin, Thomas Cus.h.i.+ng Aylwin, Frederick Baddely, Henry W. Bayfield, Francis Bell, Henry Blake, Edward Bowen, William Brent, Joseph Bouchette, Robert Sh.o.r.e Milnes Bouchette, Joseph Bouchette, junior, George Bourne, Judge Burton, Edward Burroughs, John Caldwell, Hugh Caldwell, Archibald Campbell, Charles Campbell, John Saxton Campbell, John Cannon, Edward Caron, John P. c.o.c.kburn, Andrew Wm. Cochran, Thos. Coffin, James Cuthbert, John Davidson, Wm. H. A. Davies, Dominick Daly, Jerome Demers, Edward Desbarats, Frederick Desbarats, Robert D'Estimauville, William Dudley Dupont, William Bowman Felton, John Charlton Fisher, John Fletcher, William Finlay, James B. Forsyth, John Fraser, John Malcolm Fraser, Francois Xavier Garneau, Augustin Germain, Manly Gore, William Green, Louis Gugy, John Hale, James Hamilton, Andre Remi Hamel, Joseph Hamel, Victor Hamel, Aaron Hart, James Harkness, William Henderson, Frederick Ingall, William Kemble, William Kelly, James Kerr, Pierre Laforce, Louis Lagneux, William Lampson, Pierre de Salles Laterriere, Thomas Lee, junior, Joseph Legare, Henry Lemesurier, Thomas Lloyd, William Lyons, Frederick Maitland, John McNider, William McKee, William King McCord, Roderick McKenzie, John Langley Mills, Thomas Moore, Joseph Morrin, George J Mountain, Henry Nixon, Charles Panet, Joseph Parent, Etienne Parent, Augustus Patton, Francois Xavier Perrault, Joseph Francois Perrault, William Power, Francis Ward Primrose, William Price, Remi Quirouet, William Rose, John Richardson, Randolph I. Routh, William Sax, Jonathan Sewell, Edmund Sewell, Robert S M. Sewell, William Sheppard, Peter Sheppard, Joseph Skey, William J. Skewes, William Smith, James Smilie, William Stringer, Charles James Stewart, Lord Bishop of Quebec, Sir James Stuart, David Stuart, Andrew Stuart, Joseph Signay, Robert Symes, Jean Thomas Taschereau, John Peyfinch Thirlwall, Henry Truder, Joseph Remi Valieres de St. Real, Geo. Vanfelson, Norman Fitzgerald Umacke, George Usborne, George A Wanton, Gustavus Wicksteed, Daniel Wilkie, George Willing, Thomas William Willan, George Wurtele and Jonathan Wurtele. After half a century the survivors are Gen. Baddely, Gustavus Wicksteed, Revd Edmund Sewell, John Fraser, Admiral Bayfield and Thomas Lloyd.

[53] Now the mansion of the Hon. Pantaleon Pelletier, Senator.

[54] LOSSING'S FIELD BOOK, Vol. I, p. 195, thus describes the dress of the invaders: "Each man of the three rifle companies (Morgan's, Smith's, and Hendrick's) bore a rifle barreled gun, a tomahawk or small axe, and a long knife, usually called a scalping knife, which served for all purposes in the woods. His underdress, by no means in a military style, was covered by a deep ash-coloured hunting s.h.i.+rt, legging and moccasins if the latter could be procured. It was a silly fas.h.i.+on of those times for riflemen to ape the manners of savages." "The Canadians who first saw these (men) emerge from the woods, said they were _vetus en toile_--clothed in linen. The word _toile_ was changed to _tole_, iron plated. By a mistake of a single word the fears of the people were greatly increased, for the news spread that the mysterious army that descended from the wilderness was clad in _sheet-iron_."

[54a] "The flag used by what was called the Continental troops, of which the force led into Canada by Arnold and Montgomery was a part, was of plain crimson, and perhaps sometimes it may have had a border of black. On the 1st January, 1776, the army was organized, and the new flag then adopted was first unfurled at Cambridge, at the head-quarters of General Was.h.i.+ngton, the present residence of the poet Longfellow. That flag was made up of thirteen stripes, seven red and six white, but the Union was the Union of the British flag of that day, blue bearing the Cross of St Andrew combined with the cross of St George and a diagonal red cross for Ireland. This design was used by the American Army till after the 14th June, 1777, when Congress ordered that the Union should be changed, the Union of the English flag removed and in its place there should be a simple blue field with thirteen white stars, representing the thirteen colonies declared to be states. Since that time there has been no change in the flag except that a star is added as each new state is admitted. The present number being thirty-eight."--W. O. HOWELLS.

[55] _Extract from the Quebec Gazette, May 1st_, 1794.

"CLUB."

"The Gentlemen who served in the Garrison of Quebec in 1775-76, are acquainted that their Anniversary Dinner will be held at Ferguson's Hotel on Tuesday, 6th May.

Dinner to be on Table at half-past-four o'clock.

The Honble. A. de Bonne, " " J. Walker, Esquires Simon Fraser Senr., / Stewards, James Frost, / John Coffin, junr., Secretary.

Quebec, 25th April, 1794."

[56] Date of departure of invaders in 1776.

[57] Natanis and his brother Sabatis, and seventeen other (Abenaquis) Indians, the nephews and friends of Sabatis, marched with Arnold to Quebec.--(_Henry's Journal_, page 75.) This may account for their successful venture through the trackless wilderness between Ma.s.sachusetts and Quebec.

[58] Faucher de Saint Maurice.

[59] A memorable Indian Council was held in the court of the Jesuits'

College, on 31st August, 1666.

[60] Mr. Faucher de Saint Maurice having been, in 1878, charged by the Premier, Hon. Mr. Joly, to watch the excavations and note the discoveries, in a luminous report, sums up the whole case. From this doc.u.ment, among other things, we glean that the remains of the three persons of male s.e.x are those of:

1. Pere Francois du Peron, who died at Fort St. Louys (Chambly) 10th November, 1665, and was conveyed to Quebec for burial.

2. Pere Jean de Quen, the discoverer of Lake St. John, who died at Quebec, on 8th October, 1659, from the effects of a fever contracted in attending on some of the pa.s.sengers brought here that summer by the French s.h.i.+p "Saint Andre."

3. Frere Jean Liegeois, scalped 29th May, 1655, by the Agniers at Sillery--(the historian Ferland a.s.signs as the probable spot, the land on which the late Lieutenant-Governor Caron built his mansion "Clermont," now occupied by Thomas Beckett, Esquire.) The remains of this missionary, when excavated, were headless--which exactly agrees with the entry in the _Jesuits' Journal_, May, 1655, which states that Jean Liegeois was scalped--his head cut off and left at Sillery, while his mutilated body, discovered the next day by the Algonquins, the allies of the French, was brought to Sillery, (probably the Jesuits' residence, the same solid old structure close to the foundations of the Jesuits' chapel and monument at the foot of the Sillery Hill, which many here have seen), from whence it was conveyed to the Lower Town in a boat and escorted to the Jesuits'

College, with the ceremonies of the R. C. Church.

[61] Three Nuns of the Hotel-Dieu Convent, according to authorities quoted by Mr. Faucher, were buried in the vault (_caveau_) of the Jesuits'

Chapel. The sisterhood had been allowed the use of a wing of the Jesuits'

College, where they removed after the conflagration of the 7th June, 1755, which destroyed their hospital.

4. _Mere_ Marie Marthe Desroches de Saint-Francois-Xavier, a young woman of 28 years, who succ.u.mbed to small-pox on the 16th August, 1755.

5. _Mere_ de l'Enfant-Jesus, who expired on the 12th May, 1756.

6. _Mere_ de Saint-Monique, who died in July, 1756, the victim of her devotion in ministering to the decimated crew of the s.h.i.+p "Leopard," sunk in the port by order of Government to arrest the spread of the pestilential disease which had raged on the pa.s.sage.

Mr. Faucher closes his able report with a suggestion that a monument ought to be raised, to commemorate the labours and devotion of the Jesuits, on the denuded area on which stood their venerable College.

_Relation de ce qui s'est pa.s.se lors des Fouilles faites par ordre du Gouvernement dans une partie des fondations du_ COLLeGE DES JeSUITES _de Quebec, precedee de certaines observations par_ FAUCHER DE SAINT MAURICE. _Quebec. C. Darveau_--1879.

[62] Pierre DuCalvet was sent under warrant of Gen. Haldimand, a prisoner on 29th September, 1780, on board the "Canceaux." He was then removed on 14th November, 1780, to the Military prison in Quebec, where he remained until the 13th December, 1781, when the Provost Martial, Miles Prentice placed him at the Franciscan convent, under the charge of Father DeBerey, where he remained until the 2nd May, 1784. He followed Governor Haldimand who had sailed in the "Atalante" on the 26th November, 1784, to England, to sue him in an English Court of Justice for illegal arrest, and was lost at sea in the "Shelburne" on his return to Canada.

[63] The following inscription was on the coffin plate:

(1) Count Frontenac--"Cy gyt le Haut et Puissant Seigneur, Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, Gouverneur-General de la Nouvelle-France.

Mort a Quebec, le 28 novembre 1698."--(_Hist. of Canada, Smith, Vol._ 1, _p._ 133.)

(2) Gov de Callieres.--"Cy gyst Haut et Puissant Seigneur, Hector de Callieres, Chevalier de Saint-Louis, Gouverneur et Lieutenant- General de la Nouvelle-France, decede le 26 mai 1703."--(_Ibid., p._ 148.)

(3) Gov. de Vaudreuil.--"Cy gist Haut et Puissant Seigneur, Messire Philippe Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, Grande Croix de l'Ordre Militaire de Saint-Louis, Gouverneur et Lieutenant-General de toute la Nouvelle-France decede le dixieme octobre 1725."--(_Ibid., p._ 190.)

(4) M. de la Jonquiere--"Cy repose le corps de Messire Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel, Marquis de la Jonquiere, Baron de Castlenau, Seigneur de Hardars-magnas et autres lieux, Commandeur de l'Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis, Chef d'Escadre des Armees Navales, Gouverneur et Lieutenant-General poor le Roy en tout la Nouvelle- France, terres et pa.s.ses de la Louisiane. Decede a Quebec, le 17 mai 1752, a six heures-et-demie du soir, age de 67 ans."--(_Ibid., p._ 222.)

[64] Faillon, Vol. III, p. 372.

[65] The laying of the corner stone of this lofty building whose proportions must have seemed colossal to our fathers, was done with grand masonic honors on the 14th August, 1805, by the Hon. Thos. Dunn, President of the Province of Lower Canada, and administrator of the Government, a.s.sisted by William Holmes, Esq., M.D., Deputy Grand Master of Ancient and Accepted Free-Masons. Several coins of that reign were deposited under the stone. Amongst the members of the craft, we find the names of Joseph Bouchette, Claude Denechaud, Joseph Plante, Angus Shaw, Thomas Place, David Monro, the architect's name is Edward Cannon, grand-father of Messrs. Ed. J. Lawrence and James Cannon, our esteemed fellow-citizens; Rev. Dr. Sparks delivered a splendid oration, to be found in the _Quebec Mercury_, of 17th August, 1805.

Hujusce Fori Munic.i.p.alis, Anglice UNION HALL, ex Senates provincialis consulto erecti, THOMAS DUNN Vir Honorabilis Provinciae Proetectus Politiaeque Administrator. Adstantibus et Curatioribus Selectis.

Hon. _John Young_ Praese, Hon. _John Antoine Panet_ Comitiae Provincialis Rogatore.

_Jonathan Sewell_ Armigero Cognitore Regio, _John Painter_ et _John Blackwood_, Armigeris, Pacis Curatoribus; _Joseph Bouchette_ Armigero Mensorum Princ.i.p.ali, _John Caldwell, Claude Denechaud, John Coltman, John Taylor, Joseph Plante, Angus Shaw, Thomas Place_ et _David Monro_, de Quebec Armigeris, Nec non et multis _Latomorum_ hujus Urbis, quorum _William Holmes_ Armiger, M D fuit summus Magister Deputatus, adjuvantibus, hunc primum Lapidem posuit, dei XIV. Mensis s.e.xtilis, Anno Salutis MDCCCV.

Nummi quoque Regis Regnantis GEORGE III.

Suppositi sunt, _Videlicet_.

Nummus Aureus Anglice _Guinea_, aureum etiam Dimidium ejus et Triens; Nummus argenteus solidos quinque Anglicos valans, solidus dimidium solidi, et quarta pars; nummus Aera.n.u.s denarios duos Anglicos valens; denarius obolus; et quadrans.

EDWARD CANNON, Architectus.

[66] A MONUMENT OF THE OLDEN TIME.--Inserted in the wall enclosing the lot of ground between Buade street and the Basilica, about midway from the front entrance of the church, is to be seen a slab of very fine marble, bearing the following inscription. It is the only one in the plate:--

"In memory of Mary, wife of Thomas Ainslie, Esq., Collector of His Majesty's Customs of Quebec, who died March 14th, 1767, aged 25 years.

If Virtues Charms had pow'r to save Her faithful votaries, from the grave; With Beauty's ev'ry form supply'd The lovely AINSLIE ne'er had died."

[67] John Hale who died in 1842, had six sons: 1st, Edward, who died at Quebec in May, 1874; 2nd, Jeffery Hale; 3rd, Miss Hale; 4th, Bernard Hale, now in England; 5th, Richard Hale, late 81st; 6th, William, late Capt.

52nd, who died at Ste. Anne, district of Three Rivers, about 1845; 7th, Mrs. Hotham; 8th, George Hale; 9th, Miss Elizabeth Harriet Hale, who in 1838 married Commander John Orlebar, R.N.

[68] We are indebted to Professor H. LaRue, M.D., for the following notes relative to an address delivered by him at a dinner given by the Notaries Public in 1872:--"The first physician who entered Quebec narrowly escaped being hung," says Dr. LaRue. "I said that he had narrowly escaped the gallows; had he been hung I would not say it. It occurred thus:--Champlain had just landed in the Lower Town and had laid the foundation of his abode, when some of his followers hatched a plot against his life. The scheme leaked out, the ring leader was arraigned, found guilty and hung; so far as I know, this was the first execution which took place in Canada.

Some how or other, Surgeon Bonnerme, one of Champlain's followers, was mixed up in the matter, imprisoned, but his innocence having shortly after been established, he was acquitted. Dr Bonnerme died the following year (1609) at Quebec, of scurvy. If Bonnerme was the first physician who came to Quebec, he was not, for all that, the first medical man who landed in New France; another had preceded him: Louis Hebert, the first citizen of Quebec and of all Canada. Before Hebert's day the French who came to Quebec came there for no other object than barter, hunting and fis.h.i.+ng; none had thought of settling permanently there. Louis Hebert was the first proprietor in Quebec, the first land owner in Canada; as such, historians recognize him as the first Citizen of Quebec--the _first Canadian_: a surgeon, let us bear in mind. Louis Hebert visited New France in 1606, two years before the foundation of Quebec. He spent the winter of 1606-7--a merry one--at Port Royal, Acadia, in the company of Samuel de Champlain and Lescarbot. Lescarbot was the first lawyer who found his way to New France; Lescarbot was the first historian of the country; he was gifted with wit--a proclivity to mild satire; each page of his history reveals the lawyer familiar with the Bar and its lively forensic display. The winter of 1606-7, at Port Royal, was remarkable for good cheer; appetising repasts, the product of the chase or of the sea, were the order of the day to that extent that Lescarbot declared that Port Royal fare was as _recherche_ as that of _Rue aux Ours_, in Paris--apparently the "Palais Royal" of the French capital in those times. The third or fourth physician of New France was Robert Giffard, Seignior of Beauport, who also was the first settler in that parish; not only was Giffard the first resident of Beauport, but, I have reason to believe, he was also the first settler-- _habitant_--of the rural districts in Canada. Thus, the first citizen of all Canada would appear to have been a physician; thus, after Champlain the two founders of the colony would have been physicians. Giffard's Lodge was situated on some portion of Col. Gugy's farm; the leading families of Canada look to Giffard as one of their progenitors; Archbishop Taschereau is one of his descendants.

"The first Royal Notary--_Notaire Royal_--of Canada was M. Audouard, whose first minute rests in the vaults of the Prothonotary of Quebec. But two deeds at least had been executed before this first minute. The deed of _partage_ of the Hebert family (1634), and the last will of Champlain (1635). These two instruments were executed before Metres Duchaine and De la Ville, _greffiers_; the _greffiers_ were _Notaires_ also. Another fact worthy of note is that the first time a Notary's services were put in requisition was at the instance of the heirs of Hebert, the physician."-- _Morning Chronicle_, 12th April, 1881.

[69] _Chansons populaires du Canada_, &c., par Ernest Gagnon, 1865.