Icruikshank] FROM ISLE AUX NOIX TO CHATEAUGUAY 35 



take a journey to that province as soon as the prorogation of the legis- 

 lature would permit him to leave Quebec. Colonel Vincent was 

 transferred from Kingston to command the troops on the Niagara 

 frontier and replaced by Lieut. Colonel Pearson who was succeeded 

 at Prescott by Major Macdonell of the Glengarry Light Infantry. 

 Each of these officers was granted a temporary step in rank. Four 

 companies of the 8th Regiment were ordered from Montreal to 

 Kingston and eight heavy guns were forwarded from Quebec to arm 

 the works in progress at Prescott, Kingston and York. Eighteen 

 carronades were purchased from a merchant as a temporary armament 

 for the ship under construction at Kingston. Eighty seamen for lake 

 service had been enlisted and sent forward. About nine hundred of 

 the embodied militia would become entitled to their discharge in 

 June and a draft of 2,200 from the sedentary force to replace them was 

 ordered in March. This would increase the five battalions already 

 formed to a strength of 4,000 of all ranks. Clothing of an inferior 

 quality had been purchased for them and two thousand of the militia 

 of Upper Canada by the Commissary General from merchants at 

 Quebec and Montreal. 



The session of the legislature had already continued at least 

 a week longer than the Governor General had anticipated and some 

 members of the opposition seemed inclined to prolong it. He ac- 

 cordingly announced his intention of proroguing the House of As- 

 sembly on the 15th, stating that his presence was most urgently re- 

 quired in the upper province. No trace of the annoyance and dis- 

 appointment which he must naturally have felt respecting the failure 

 of the amendments to the militia act so strongly desired by him and 

 the passage of their ill advised resolutions with regard to martial 

 law, was apparent in his speech. He thanked the Assembly warmly 

 for their liberality in granting supplies for the public service. "The 

 present crisis," he added, "will in all probability, call for sacrifices 

 which your loyalty and patriotism will, I trust, lead you without 

 hesitation to make. And I look forward from your good example 

 to a cheerful acquiescence on the part of all His Majesty's subjects 

 in the province, in whatever may be required of them for the defence 

 of the country and for the preservation of the blessings they enjoy 

 under His Majesty's mild and paternal government." 



On February 17, he began his long and tedious journey in bit- 

 terly cold weather and travelled as continuously and with as much 

 speed as the great depth of snow would permit, arriving at Montreal 

 on the 20th and at Prescott on the following evening. Two com- 

 panies of the 8th Regiment commanded by Captain Eustace had ar- 

 rived there that morning on their way to Kingston and both Pearson 



