few officers of your rank stood higher in their estimation.  In short, I have no manner of doubt whatever that you will readily obtain employment upon active service the moment that you do get home, and with this view I recommend you to express, through Baynes, your sense of his excellency’s good intentions and wishes towards you in respect to leave of absence, and your hopes that when the circumstances of the country are such as will permit him to grant six months’ leave to a general officer, that this indulgence will be extended in the first instance to you.  I am very happy to find that you are pleased with Mrs. Murray:  I have just received a long letter from her, giving me an account of a splendid ball given by you to the beau monde of Niagara and its vicinity, and the manner in which she speaks of your liberality and hospitality reminds me of the many pleasant hours I have passed under your roof. We have no such parties now, and the indisposition of Sir James having prevented the usual public days at the castle, nothing more stupid than Quebec now is can be imagined.

Colonel Baylies to Brigadier Brock, at Fort George.

    QUEBEC, February 14, 1811.

From the sincere and lively interest which I am sure you feel for our worthy chief, I am happy to announce to you that an important change has taken place in his disease, from which his medical attendants augur, with great confidence, most essential and permanent relief.  On Sunday last I received a summons to attend immediately at the castle, where Kempt was also called, and to our extreme astonishment he informed us that he was then about to undergo the operation of tapping, as he fully coincided with his medical attendants who advised it.  Sir James (Craig) proceeded with great calmness to give me some instructions as his executor, in the event of any fatal consequence following, which he did with a degree of composure, and even cheerfulness, which only a mind like his can assume.  We were present, at his request, at the operation, which appeared to me painfully tedious—­but not an expression, or even a look of impatience, escaped Sir James, whose manner absolutely inspired spirits and fortitude to those around.  At the close he stood up for several minutes to let the water drain from the higher parts of the body, and thirty-six pints, weighing nearly as many pounds, were altogether drawn off.

Sir James lately received accounts of the 14th of November, that his brother, General Peter Craig, was then so reduced and weak from a long and severe illness, that no hopes were entertained of him.  You will conceive what a severe shock this has been, the more so as Sir James never harboured a doubt that his elder brother, from his apparently stronger constitution, would have long survived him.  Their mutual ties of relationship were in a manner concentrated in each other, for Sir James will have none left but of a very distant