314 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA: 
to repel the open attacks of these people, as 
late as the year 1736. When the large fairs 
used to be held in Montreal, to which the 
Indians from all parts resorted with their furs, 
they were also found extremely useful, as the 
inhabitants were'thereby enabled to shut out 
the Indians at night, who, had they been suffer¬ 
ed to remain in the town, addicted as they are 
to drinking, might have been tempted to com¬ 
mit great outrages, and would have kept the in¬ 
habitants in a continual state of alarm. In their 
best state, the walls could not have protected’ 
the town against camion, not even against a six- 
pounder ; nor, indeed, would the strongest 
walls be of any use in defending it against ar¬ 
tillery, as it is completely commanded by tile 
eminences in the island of St. Helene*, in the 
River St. Lawrence. Montreal has always 
been an easy conquest to regular troops. 
By far the greater number of the inhabitants 
of Montreal are of French extraction ; all the 
eminent merchants, however, and principal 
people in the town, are either English, Scotch, 
Irish, or their descendants, all of whom pass 
for English with the French inhabitants. The 
French retain in a great measure, the manners 
and customs of their ancestors, as well as the 
* This island was the last place which the French sur¬ 
rendered to the British. 
