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GENERAL ROBEBT PRESCOTT, LT.-GOVERNOR AT 

 QUEBEC, 1796. 



Occasionally, the dignitaries representing Britain on 

 our shores seem, in early times, to have playfully laid 

 aside official reserve, mingling with the French colon- 

 ists, through curiosity or possibly to judge by them- 

 selves what the latter thought of their new English 

 masters. 



Some of these familiar interviews with King George's 

 new subjects, were not without a spice of fun. 



" General Prescott, says M. de Gaspe, was much 

 liked by the French-Canadians, and not unfrequently, 

 sought other light than what he received from his 

 entourage, much, in the end, to the disgust of the 

 latter. I knew him in my youth : he was a diminutive 

 old man — simple in his manners and dressed in winter 

 as if he longed to imitate that famous personage of the 

 Arabian Nights, Sultan Aaroon. 



A Beauport farmer, in 1796, conveying to Quebec a 

 load of fire- wood, met on the ice on the Eiver St. Charles 

 an elderly man wrapped up in a great coat, the worse 

 of usage, and wearing a martin cap anything but new ; 

 his red, bleared eyes were watery. Jean-Baptiste took 

 compassion on the woe-begone wayfarer, who seemed 

 tired and said ; " You look fatigued, pere, my vehicle 

 is not very grand, but you will fare better on top of 

 my load than trudging in this heavy snow." 



The wayfarer readily assented and took his seat on 

 the load, when a lengthy conversation was exchanged 

 between him and the kind-hearted farmer. 



On the sleigh reaching the foot of Palace Hill, the 

 farmer was rather surprised to see that his new 

 acquaintance, without apparent regard for his horse, did 

 not dismount, 4 but concluded that the poor old fellow 

 was quite exhausted by fatigue and that after all, his 

 mare, being a powerful beast, would not mind this 

 additional light weight. 



