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Spanish sailors on viewing the sterile aspect of some 

 headland. The Suffolk seal inscription, pictured by 

 Hawkins, has been proved to mean Caudebec, a town 

 in Normandy, and not Quebec. But let us not tread 

 rashly on the ground of the antiquary. 



Subsequent ages have ratified the sound judgment of 

 Champlain in selecting the commanding site of Quebec 

 as the location of the great fortress of French power in 

 America, the " fulcrum, which for a century moved the 

 continent from the shores of the St. Lawrence to the 

 Gulf of Mexico ", though at one time, the sheltered 

 shores of the St. Charles were freely talked of, as the 

 proper site of the then nascent settlement. 



How oft', indeed, has the storm of battle raged 

 furiously round Quebec's hoary ramparts, bristling with 

 guns lying in ambush, like huge beasts of prey, ready 

 to pounce on any assailant ; its solid walls and crenel- 

 ated bastions, erected by skilled French engineers, and 

 costing fabulous sums to France ; the present Citadel, a 

 noble structure planned by the French Engineer de Lery, 

 recommended by the Duke of Wellington, was built 1823- 

 1830. This comparatively modern work, the materials 

 for which were hoisted 350 feet, from the St. Lawrence 

 below, by the first railway in Canada, cost England 

 millions, under the supervision of Col. Durnford. 



Many and murderous were the indian raids around 

 Quebec at the dawn of the settlement, Champlain having 

 injudiciously taken part against the Iroquois, in the 

 incessant wars they waged against the Huron and 

 Algonquin tribes, hutted in the vicinity of the Fort. 



Quebec, more than once the battlefield of England 

 and France, in the New World, had to bear repeatedly 

 the brant of the rivalry of these two powers, uncon- 

 nected then by treaties of commerce. 



Five sieges, in 1629, 1690, 1759, 1760, 1775, have 

 left their unmistakeable footprints round its battlements. 



Had the bulk of the citizens, the sons of old France, 

 in 1775 and 1812, sided with the invader, there would 

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