can entertain them; my mind is taken up with nothing but the Friendship, which they know....  So soon as the weather is warmer I intend to go to Quebec in order to obtain the best advice:  I shall not personally be so conveniently situated there, as here.  I am able yet to go out as far as a bank before the Door and to walk through the rooms; indeed the arrangements and conveniences of this house with the attendance and attention I receive are all in the best manner I can possibly desire; ... it’s enough to say that were you here I think you would approve of them.  Industry and neatness prevail and everything nesessary [is] foreseen and provided for.  No wonder my wife and I agree so well now these thirty-five years as she happens to be equal in every moral attribute which I pretend to....  We are in friendship with everybody, because we do justice impartially and really without vanity have assisted many persons in forming farms and providing for the support of familys; although thereby not in the way of enriching ourselves it affords perhaps as much Satisfaction.

This place certainly thrives exceedingly; although we may by such exertions be recommending ourselves to the Father of all things, how poor they appear in my eyes having read lately the Newspapers.  Most unreasonable are some men in Parliament to find fault with the ministry of Pitt and Dundass who have steered the Vessel of the State so successfully through such dangerous times and threatening appearances.  Every Briton I think has reason to be proud of his Country which is raised higher than ever before not only in national Character but in its prospects of Commerce and Wealth by the Peace [the brief Peace of Amiens signed in March, 1802].  What prodigious honour and glory has been acquired and bestowed upon our Army of Egypt, exertions indeed on the most conspicuous theatre of the World and at the most conspicuous period of the world.  We formerly thought ourselves sort of heroes by conquering Louisbourg and Quebec but nothing must be compared to that of Egypt....  The French troops have fought much better under their Diacal Republican government than under their King’s and our troops not only fight equally well as formerly, but our Generals and Officers are much better writers; never have I read better wrote letters than those describing these renown’d events.

But pray allow me to sink into poetry to help to fill up this paper; ... let me transcribe a letter in verse which is handed me now by an old Soldier residing near us.[18] He received it from an acquaintance of his who is only a private soldier in the 26th Regiment.  That Regt. is now gone home; ... should it be at Edinburgh pray invite James Stevenson to a dram of Whiskey for my sake; though I do not know the man we had served together in the American War and he shows the idea the private men had of me and how a man of a slender education (I believe from Glasgow) can make verses.  The Canadians here, I believe, have the same opinion though they are very far from making verses upon any subject whatever; it is much more useful here to cut down trees which they can do with great dexterity.

     Quebec, 25th April, 1800.