At the very moment that Mr. Bidwell, with the barred light from my loop-holed windows shining on and shadowing his pallid countenance, was standing before me, tendering with the hand that wrote it his own sentence of condemnation, the Home Government were relieving me from the relative position in which I stood, because I had refused to promote this Mr. Bidwell to the bench over the heads of Archibald Maclean, Jonas Jones, Henry Sherwood, Sir Allan MacNab, and other Canadian-born members of the bar, who throughout their lives had distinguished themselves in the field, as well as in the senate, by their attachment to the British throne. I had told the Queen's Government (vide my Despatches printed by order of Her Majesty, and laid before Parliament) that Mr. Bidwell's “ object had been to separate Canada from the parent state, to create disaffection for the paternal Government of the King, and by forming an alliance with M. Papineau's party, to exchange the British constitution for the low grovelling principles of democracy;" and "that for these reasons publicly to elevate Mr. Bidwell to the bench, would deprive me of the respect and confidence of the country."

But the picture I here drew of Mr. Bidwell's principles and of the objects he had all his life had in view, was, I regret to say, attractive rather than repulsive, and, accordingly, in reply to my sketch, I was informed that Her Majesty's Government "could not regard the part which Mr. Bidwell formerly took in local politics as an insuperable barrier to his

future advancement in his profession, and that, on the contrary, adverting to the general estimate of Mr. Bidwell's qualifications for a seat on the bench, it appeared that the public service would be promoted by securing his service." I was therefore ordered, in case of another vacancy, to offer the appointment to Mr. Bidwell: this, rightly or wrongly, it now matters not, I refused to do: and thus, while Mr. Bidwell, in consequence of having abjured his allegiance to the British Crown, was receiving in the United States compliments and congratulations on his appointment to the American bar, it appeared from the London Gazette that the Home Government had advised Her Majesty to relieve his opponent from the administration of the government of Upper Canada; in short,

"The man recovered from the bite,

The dog it was that died!"

The above epitaph so graphically describes my decease, that I have not a word to add to it.

Of my poor surviving flag-staff, however, I may be permitted to state, that it was deemed advisable to take the thing down, and, accordingly, with the help of half-a-dozen carpenters, down it came, never to rise again.

Out of millions of acres of flag-staffs that were growing around it, not one was deemed worthy to exist on its site or in its immediate neighbourhood!

What the radicals said, and what the loyal militia thought, when, instead of their revered" British Flag," they once again beheld nothing on the roof

of Government House but the stacks of reeking chimneys I have described, it is now too late to inquire.

There is one feeling, however, in which all parties in Canada have agreed, namely, of utter astonishment that the great Conservative Party in the mother country has never once opened its lips in Parliament to demand a single word of explanation respecting the strange facts connected with Mr. Bidwell's proposed elevation to the Bench, as detailed in despatches laid by command of the Queen before both Houses of the Imperial Parliament !

CHAPTER X.

THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.

As soon as intelligence reached me that the American General, Van Ransalaer, and his forces, had taken forcible possession of Navy Island, I directed Sir Allan MacNab to march the Canada militia under his command to the Niagara frontier; and his reports of the reinforcements which were hourly arriving at Van Ransalaer's camp becoming at last alarming, by the advice of my council I proceeded to the Niagara frontier, to a point within a mile of Navy Island.

Of the Falls of Niagara so many detailed descriptions have been printed that I shall only attempt of them a rough outline.

It is well known that the magnificent reservoirs of fresh water which characterise the continent of North America are composed of a series of five lakes, or rather of inland seas, of different altitudes (their circumferences exceed four thousand miles) communicating with each other by two short friths or narrow channels, the lowest of which, the Niagara river, by an inclination of three hundred and thirty feet, conducts the waters of Lakes Superior,

Michigan, Huron, and Erie, into Lake Ontario, whence they flow through the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and at last to the Atlantic, lying six hundred and twenty-seven feet below Lake Superior, and about two thousand miles from it.

I had ridden from the neighbourhood of Lake Erie to this river, where I found a four-oared boat ready to receive me, and accordingly stepping on board, propelled by the current and by my crew, I proceeded down the clear blue stream at a very rapid

rate.

Although it was in the depth of winter, the scenery around me was calmly beautiful.

On the right, or American shore, were to be seen towns, villages, and habitations embedded in snow, and intermixed in about equal parts with the remains of the forest. On the left, or British side, there existed, here and there, a village, a fort, several thriving farms, and a narrow belt of cleared land, also milk white, occasionally dotted with stumps, and bounded by the dark-stemmed, whitetopped wilderness.

The difference between these two fraternal shores was only that of age. The right bank was the emblem of youth, the left of infancy. Both had been partially cleared by the same parent-by the same race; but the right shore was the elder brother, and had attained strength and age before the other was born, or, to drop metaphor, the American, or eastern shore, had been sufficiently cultivated, peopled, and