Friday.—­Rained incessantly.  Found the benefit of my new rig-out of flannel and India-rubber boots.  Visited the House of Assembly.  The Speaker, my kind friend Mr. Cuvillier, had given me an order.  He has L1000 a year, and the representatives two dollars a day.  The Legislative Council Chamber is worth seeing.  I spent the evening with Mr. Rickards.  I finished up the most satisfactory business I had done in any town since I left home.  Montreal is very flourishing—­the metropolis of Canada—­and will double its population, now 50,000, ere long, if Sir Charles Metcalfe is supported; but the French Canadians, and the Irish, who abound, led by their priests, are brewing dissatisfaction and discord.  His councillors have just resigned, and a general election is taking place.  May he succeed is my earnest wish!

Saturday, 6th.—­We left Montreal at twelve at noon per stage to Lachine.  We passed the mountains and Sir C. Metcalfe’s private house on the road.  We took a steamer (the Chieftain) here to Dickenson’s Landing, thirty-eight miles.  We passed on the left, at starting, an Indian village, called Cachnawago, where the Ojibbeway tribe live.  We saw several in their canoes.  On the left, just before we landed, we saw the Beauharnois Canal, of E.G.  Wakefield notoriety.  He must either have been bought, or, if not, he certainly must have been a fool to allow the canal to be cut on the American side of the St. Lawrence.  The Yankees are thirsting for British blood; and, should they be successful in Canada, this costly canal goes.  We now took stage for sixteen miles, on a planked road, and with a first-rate team.  On the left were the rapids of the St. Lawrence, or Cascades.  I would not have believed had I not seen a small steamer, drawing about four feet of water, going down at an awful rate.  I expected every minute it would have been dashed to atoms.  How they escape, eight or ten a day, as they go up the canal and return that day, is astonishing.  This is the most incredible sight I have witnessed.  Roebuck, the Member for Bath, was born here.  On arriving at Chateau-du-Luc we got on board a very fine boat, the Highlander, Captain Stearns—­a fine fellow.  After proceeding forty-one miles, we reached the Cornwall Canal, where we were much impeded by seven locks.  This splendid canal, the finest in the world, is one hundred feet wide, and the locks fifty-two:  it is twelve miles long, and about fourteen feet deep.  We now pass from Lower to Upper Canada, direct from east to west; and about six miles forward we find the State of New York on the left.  About thirty miles farther we call at Ogdensburgh, on the American side, and Prescott right opposite, where the windmill stands dilapidated from the skirmish the patriots had here, when the English demolished the lot.  We called at Maitland for wood, and thence to Brockville, and glided up the Thousand Islands:  there really are a thousand islands between here and Kingston.  The foliage on the trees was grand—­all colours.  It passed all description; and the trees actually grow out of the rocks with which all the islands are covered.  About ten miles from Kingston, on one of the islands, lives the notorious Bill Johnston, the patriot.  We arrived at Kingston at four P.M., 216 miles in twenty-eight hours.