We
mean to prove our sincerity by our conduct. And then, if it is not all
that our imagination promises, we will write again and confess."
Professor Benjamin Silliman discourses thus: -
"A seat of ancient dominion - now hoary with the lapse of more than two
centuries - formerly the seat of a French empire in the west - lost and
won by the blood of gallant armies, and of illustrious commanders -
throned on a rock, and defended by all the proud defiance of war! Who
could approach such a city without emotion? Who in Canada has not
longed to cast his eyes on the water-girt rocks and towers of
Quebec." - (Silliman's Tour in Canada, 1819.)
Charles Lever has left a curious glimpse of Quebec from Diamond Harbour,
as seen, by his incomparable Irish Gil Blas, Mr. Cornelius Cregan, the
appreciated lodger of Madam Thomas John Davis at the "Hotel Davis."
"As viewed from Diamond Harbour, a more striking city than Quebec is
seldom seen. The great rock rising above the Lower Town, and crowned
with its batteries, all bristling with guns, seemed to my eyes the
very realization of impregnability. I looked upon the ship that lay
tranquilly on the water below, and whose decks were thronged with
blue-jackets - to the Highlander who paced his short path as sentry,
some hundred feet high upon the wall of the fortress, and I thought to
myself with such defenders as these that standard yonder need never
carry any other banner.
