One look more at the wild graces of nature I leave behind.

Adieu!  Canada! adieu! sweet abode of the wood-nymphs! never shall I cease to remember with delight the place where I have passed so many happy hours.

Heaven preserve my dear Lucy, and give prosperous gales to her friends!

        Your faithful
          A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER 173.

To Miss Montague.

Isle of Bic, Aug. 16.

You are little obliged to me, my dear, for writing to you on ship-board; one of the greatest miseries here, being the want of employment:  I therefore write for my own amusement, not yours.

We have some French ladies on board, but they do not resemble Madame Des Roches.  I am weary of them already, though we have been so few days together.

The wind is contrary, and we are at anchor under this island; Fitzgerald has proposed going to dine on shore:  it looks excessively pretty from the ship.

Seven in the evening.

We are returned from Bic, after passing a very agreable day.

We dined on the grass, at a little distance from the shore, under the shelter of a very fine wood, whose form, the trees rising above each other in the same regular confusion, brought the dear shades of Silleri to our remembrance.

We walked after dinner, and picked rasberries, in the wood; and in our ramble came unexpectedly to the middle of a visto, which, whilst some ships of war lay here, the sailors had cut through the island.

From this situation, being a rising ground, we could see directly through the avenue to both shores:  the view of each was wildly majestic; the river comes finely in, whichever way you turn your sight; but to the south, which is more sheltered, the water just trembling to the breeze, our ship which had put all her streamers out, and to which the tide gave a gentle motion, with a few scattered houses, faintly seen amongst the trees at a distance, terminated the prospect, in a manner which was inchanting.

I die to build a house on this island; it is pity such a sweet spot should be uninhabited:  I should like excessively to be Queen of Bic.

Fitzgerald has carved my name on a maple, near the shore; a pretty piece of gallantry in a husband, you will allow:  perhaps he means it as taking possession for me of the island.

We are going to cards.  Adieu! for the present.

Aug. 18.

’Tis one of the loveliest days I ever saw:  we are fishing under the Magdalen islands; the weather is perfectly calm, the sea just dimpled, the sun-beams dance on the waves, the fish are playing on the surface of the water:  the island is at a proper distance to form an agreable point of view; and upon the whole the scene is divine.

There is one house on the island, which, at a distance, seems so beautifully situated, that I have lost all desire of fixing at Bic:  I want to land, and go to the house for milk, but there is no good landing place on this side; the island seems here to be fenced in by a regular wall of rock.