LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 105 



not feel mucli disinclined, if such, a salary was allowed for visiting 

 the Indians two or three times a month, as would make up for the 

 loss I must sustain in leaving my present situation. I beg leave, 

 however, to assure your Lordship that I wish not to ask any 

 unpleasant favour,, for really, my Lord," Mr. Addison pathetically 

 subjoins, " I think it a matter of great indifference where I struggle 

 through the few remaining years of my life." 



It having happened just now that Dr. Strachan and Bishop 

 Mountain came before us together, I give here, as examples of their 

 autograph letters respectively, two extracts in which a trifling 

 passage of arms or crossing of pens occurs between them. The Bishop 

 of Quebec was in London at the moment, attending to Canadian 

 Ecclesiastical interests at Downing Street and elsewhere. The Doctor 

 writes to him from York, Upper Canada ; and after, among many 

 other things, detailing certain specific advantages which he has heard 

 the Roman Catholics of Upper Canada had lately obtained from the 

 Home Government, he ventures to observe to the Bishop, " It is 

 impossible to look at this statement, my Lord, without inferring that 

 either the Ministers at home, or the Head of the Chuxch in this 

 country, had failed in. their duty. It therefore behoves your Lord- 

 ship to take such steps as shall clear you from any such suspicion, and 

 bring to light your incessant exertions for the increase and prosperity 

 of the Church, (i.e. the Church of England in Canada.)" He suggests 

 that the Secretary of State for the Colonies should be moved to 

 dispatch a strong letter to the authorities in Canada in favour of the 

 Church of England; "and if the letter added," he says, "that his 

 Majesty's Government expected the hearty co-operation of men high 

 in ofiice here in promoting the prosperity of the Establishment and 

 affording it every assistance, it would have a wonderful effect. 

 Such a letter," he remarks, not surely with his customary shrewdness, 

 *' your Lordship might, I think, very easily procure." 



After passing in review the other points in Dr. Strachan's commu- 

 nication, the Bishop takes notice with a good deal of dignity of the 

 words and ideas just quoted. He writes from Hastings, ia Sussex : 

 "You tell me, Sir," he says, "that it is impossible to look at this 

 business without inferring that either the Ministers at home or the 

 Head of the Church in Canada had failed in their duty. It therefore 

 (you say) behoves me to take such steps as shall clear me from any 

 such suspicion, &c. These observations may in some degree be 

 3 



