Council Chamber is worth seeing. I spent the evening with Mr. Rickards.
I finished up the most satisfactory business I had done in any town
since I left home. Montreal is very flourishing--the metropolis of
Canada--and will double its population, now 50,000, ere long, if Sir
Charles Metcalfe is supported; but the French Canadians, and the Irish,
who abound, led by their priests, are brewing dissatisfaction and
discord. His councillors have just resigned, and a general election is
taking place. May he succeed is my earnest wish!


_Saturday_, 6th.--We left Montreal at twelve at noon per stage to
Lachine. We passed the mountains and Sir C. Metcalfe's private house on
the road. We took a steamer (the _Chieftain_) here to Dickenson's
Landing, thirty-eight miles. We passed on the left, at starting, an
Indian village, called Cachnawago, where the Ojibbeway tribe live. We
saw several in their canoes. On the left, just before we landed, we saw
the Beauharnois Canal, of E.G. Wakefield notoriety. He must either have
been bought, or, if not, he certainly must have been a fool to allow the
canal to be cut on the American side of the St. Lawrence. The Yankees
are thirsting for British blood; and, should they be successful in
Canada, this costly canal goes. We now took stage for sixteen miles, on
a planked road, and with a first-rate team. On the left were the rapids
of the St. Lawrence, or Cascades. I would not have believed had I not
seen a small steamer, drawing about four feet of water, going down at an
awful rate. I expected every minute it would have been dashed to atoms.
How they escape, eight or ten a day, as they go up the canal and return
that day, is astonishing. This is the most incredible sight I have
witnessed. Roebuck, the Member for Bath, was born here. On arriving at
Chateau-du-Luc we got on board a very fine boat, the _Highlander_,
Captain Stearns--a fine fellow. After proceeding forty-one miles, we