TRADE OF MONTREAL AND QUEBEC. 331 



my moderation." " If the moderate people of Quebec 

 talk as you do," I said, " I wonder what your violent 

 men can say." 



It is feeling, and not judgment, that has led to the 

 excitement and extreme language and action of these 

 British Canadians. I could not help remarking to myself, 

 in reference to the Quebec merchants, that if, in their 

 ordinary affairs, these successful and prudent men were 

 to show a tithe of the want of consideration displayed in 

 their political conversation, neither their own nor other 

 people's business would so prosper in their hands. 



But I feel that I should be wrong to judge of the 

 opinions of the people of Quebec from my own limited 

 experience, or to estimate the sentiments even of a single 

 British resident from a hasty after-dinner expression. 

 There are at present reasons of an economical kind why 

 the mercantile community in Montreal should be in a 

 more excitable condition than that of Quebec, and which 

 reasons may possibly go far to explain the angry freaks 

 of the population of the former city. From some cause 

 or other, which it is not necessary here to investigate, 

 the trade of Montreal had, for several years before the 

 late emeute^ been seriously declining, while that of Quebec 

 had been largely increasing. This will be seen by the 

 following comparison of the Imports into the two places 

 in pounds sterling : — 



Montreal. Quebec. 



1841, . . c£l,699,837 ^179,109 



1845, . . 2,153,631 585,533 



1847, . . 1,695,978 655,000 



1848, . . 1,217,604 514,393 



I have Inserted only as many years as were necessary 

 to show that the imports of Quebec have greatly increased 

 during the last ten years, while those of Montreal, not- 

 withstanding the rapid growth of the province, have 

 rather diminished. The commerce of the former city is 



