The Hospital Of Toulouse Is Just Short Of Nine Millions.

Bankrupts everywhere merchants and others.

St. Peter street has become the general headquarters of the most important commerce, and of life insurance and fire assurance offices. The financial institutions are there proudly enthroned: the Bank of Montreal (founded in 1818 and incorporated in 1828), Bank of Quebec (founded in 1817), the Union Bank (founded in 1865), the Banque Nationale (founded in 1873), the Bank of British North America (founded in 1836, incorporated in 1840, opened at Quebec in 1837), the Merchants' Bank (founded in 1861).

In this street resided, in 1774, the Captain Bouchette, who, in the following year, in his little craft, Le Gaspe, brought us back our brave Governor, Guy Carleton; M. Bouchard, merchant, M. Panet, N.P. (the father of His Lordship, Bishop B.C. Panet), as also M. Boucher, Harbor Master of Quebec, "(who was appointed to that post by the Governor, Sir R. S. Milnes, on the recommendation of the Duke of Kent.)." [89] Boucher had piloted the vessel, having on board the 7th Regiment, (the Duke's), from Quebec to Halifax.

The office in which the Quebec Morning Chronicle has been published since 1847, belonged in 1759 to M. Jean Tache, "President of the Mercantile Body," "an honest, and sensible man," as appears by Memoirs sur le Canada, (1749-60). One of our first poets, he composed a poem "On the Sea." The ancestor of the late Sir E. P. Tache, and of the novelist, Jos. Marmette and others, he possessed, at that period, extensive buildings on the Napoleon wharf, which were destroyed by fire in 1845, and a house in the country, on the Ste. Foye road, afterwards called "Holland House," after Major Samuel Holland, our first Provincial Surveyor-General, whose services as surveyor and engineer were subsequently so conspicuous at Quebec and at Prince Edward Island.

The Chronicle building, during nearly half a century, was a coffee house, much frequented by sea-faring men, known as the "Old Neptune" Inn. The effigy of the sea-god, armed with his formidable trident, placed over the main entrance, seemed to threaten the passers-by. We can remember, as yesterday, his colossal proportions. "Old Neptune" [90] has disappeared about thirty years back.

THE OLD NEPTUNE INN.

"Shall I not take mine ease in mine Inn." - Shakespeare.

"The Golden Fleece was the oldest tavern in Corinth. It had been the resort of sea-faring men from the remotest period." - (Travels of Herodotus in Greece, 460 B.C.)

When the brilliant Henry Ward Beecher pronounced Quebec an Old Curiosity Shop, we are induced to think that amidst its accumulated antiquarian relics, its church pictures and madonnas, its famous battle-fields, its historical monuments, massive fortifications and wondrous scenery, - more than one of the quaint French dwellings with their peaked gables, and walls four feet thick, must have caught his observant eye. However striking Ward Beecher's word-painting may be, it would I opine, have required the marvellous pencil of the author of "The House with the Seven Gables," Nathaniel Hawthorne, becomingly to portray all the arcana of such a building as the Chien d'Or (the old Post Office), with its ghastly memories of blood and revenge.

The legendary moss clustering round these hoary piles, is not, however, always dark and gloomy. Love, war, adventure, occasionally lend them their exciting or their soft glamour. Sometimes the annals of commerce entwine them with a green wreath - a sure talisman against the rust of oblivion. It is one of the land marks of commerce we purpose here briefly to describe.

At the foot of Mountain Hill, lies our chief emporium of news, labelled for more than a quarter of a century, Morning Chronicle Office. These premises stand on a very conspicuous site, viz., at the foot of Mountain Hill, the highway from the port to the Upper Town, direct to the old Chateau and Citadel - a few rods only from the spot where Champlain, in 1608, laid the foundations of his extensive warehouses and dwelling, and close to where, in 1615, he had his famous gardens. This business stand, for many years past, was owned by the late Hon. Henry Black; at present it belongs to Hon. Geo. Okill Stuart, Judge of the Court of Vice Admiralty. Its beginnings brings us back to the era of the Bourbon sovereigns of Canada, to the unregretted time (1758), when Intendant Bigot's shoddy entourage held high carnival in famine-stricken Quebec.

In those blighting days, in which Madame de Pompadour reigned in France, and Madame Pean in Quebec, rings and public robbery flourished in Canada; but among high officials, all were not corrupt. There were some memorable exceptions. One of these exceptions was the worthy, witty, and honest warden of the Quebec merchants, Jean Tache, "homme probe et d'esprit," say old memoirs. Mr. Tache, the "syndic des marchands," was not only an upright and wealthy merchant, he was also gifted with the poetical fire; he, it was, who wrote the first French poem issued in Canada, "Le Tableau de la Mer."

Jean Tache was also an extensive holder of real estate in and round Quebec, warehouses (des voutes) on the Napoleon wharf; a country seat on the Ste. Foye road, subsequently the property of Surveyor- General Samuel Holland - Holland Farm; lastly, the well-known business stand, where, in 1847, Mr. St. Michel printed James Bell Forsyth's news sheet, the Morning Chronicle.

Commercial ruin overtook the worthy Lower Town magnate, Monsieur Tache; his ships and cargoes, during the war of the conquest, like the rest of poor, deserted Canada, fell into English hands, being captured at sea; out of the disaster Jean Tache saved naught but his honourable name.

We fail to trace for a time the fortunes of his Mountain Hill Counting House. At the dawn of this century the premises were used as a famous coffee-house, the "Neptune" Inn, [91] a noted place of resort for merchants, masters and owners of ships.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 68 of 231
Words from 68895 to 69894 of 236821