their commerce and adventure; at the same time, the attention of England was too much occupied with her enormous efforts and magnificent success in Europe to pay much attention to the comparatively unimportant struggle in the West. At the same time, I freely and willingly give to the Americans, my humble tribute of praise for the skill and gallantry of their officers and sailors; of these any country might be proud, as for many high-minded and chivalrous acts, worthy of a great and free people. In the noble and admirable quality of military virtue, they have in their short history proved themselves not inferior to any nation in the world. None should be more ready to acknowledge their merit than Englishmen, from whose race they have sprung, and who have so often found them to be by sea and land "worthy of their steel." May it seem fit to the Great Ruler of all counsels, that our future rivalry may only be in works of peace, in the increase of the happiness of our people! Even now, while a degree of mutual irritation and distrust exists, I earnestly breathe a wish, express a hope, ay-announce a faith-that the bright day which philanthropists have dreamed of, poets seen in the visions of fancy, and the inspired page of prophecy foretold, is not far distant; when the spread of enlightenment, civilization, and above all of Christianity, among the nations of the earth, will do away for ever with the stern and terrible necessity of the sword; when the dazzling light which fame now throws upon the names of those who direct victorious armies, may be looked upon but as a false meteor, their records known only as a memory of a by-gone and mistaken glory. ; This Lake Ontario is five hundred miles round the length measures three times the breadth, and its surface is two hundred and thirty-one feet above the level of the Atlantic. Throughout the whole extent the largest ships may sail; in many parts a line of a hundred fathoms has not reached the bottom: owing to this great depth it never freezes, except where the water is shallow along the shores. A great, and every year increasing trade, is carried on over its surface in steam and sailing vessels worthy of the ocean. The English possess now a marked superiority in the number of their shipping; their steam-boats are twice as numerous as those of their southern neighbours, their shore is also more populous, more solidly thriving, and better cultivated; ten years ago the reverse was the case. Numerous streams pour in their tribute, both from the north and the south: these and the waters of the lake abound in fish of excellent and varied flavour; the salmon and bass are the most highly prized, and are taken in great quantities. The fantastic mirage plays its freaks here, too: in the summer weather, when you are among the islands or near the shore, its illusions are as beautiful as strange. On the Canadian side, to the west of Kingstown, is a most singular arm of the lake, called the Bay of Quintè: for eighty miles it intrudes its zigzag course through the land, nearly returning again to the main waters. In many places it is but a mile broad, but everywhere deep and safe. On its shores the forests are rapidly giving way to thriving settlements, some of them in situations of very great beauty. By far the greater number of emigrants from the British islands settle in these lake districts, but the twenty or thirty thousand a year who arrive are at once absorbed, and make but little apparent difference in the extent occupied; the insatiable wilderness still cries for more. The rate of wages for labour is very high-as is also the profit of the farmer. The English markets are open to any quantity of produce; the forges of Sheffield and the looms of Manchester supply payment, while twenty thousand of the best seamen in the world practise their calling and earn their living in bearing these interchanged goods over the Atlantic. Alas! for the five months of the year in which nature has fixed her irrevocable decree against this happy intercourse! Woe to those ships which venture to trust too long to the treacherous mildness of the autumn! In 1845, all the vessels but one that were detained to the 28th of November-thirteen in number-went aground in one stormy night of bitter frost, between Quebec and the gulph of St. Lawrence. They remained jammed in among the ice, most of them crushed into wrecks, while the crews of several perished in awful tortures, in a vain effort to escape. Some of the survivors lost their limbs, from being frost-bitten, others are cast on the lonely islands, and for many a day their fate must remain unknown. Let those hope for them who can:-huge masses of ice float rapidly round their frozen prison with each chang |