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. Like the Golden Fleece Tavern
of Corinth, which seems to have sheltered the father of History -
Herodotus - in the year 460 B.C., its "banqueting saloon" was roomy,
though every word uttered there also smacked of the salt water. The
old "Neptune" was probably occasionally looked up in 1807 by the Press
Gang, which, in those days, was not a thing to be laughed at. Witness
the fate of poor Latresse, shot down for refusing to surrender to
Lieut. Andrel, R.N., on trying to make his escape from a tavern in St.
John's suburbs, where he had been attending a dancing party. [92]
Singularly enough, sixty years ago, the leading Lower Town merchants
met in this old tenement of the former "Syndic des Marchands"
to establish the first Exchange. Of the resolutions passed at the
meeting thereat, held in 1816, and presided over by an eminent
merchant, John William Woolsey, Esq., subsequently President of the
Quebec Bank, we find a notice in the Quebec Gazette, of 12th
December, 1816. [93] They decided to establish a Merchant's Exchange
in the lower part of the "Neptune" Inn. Amongst those present, one
recognizes familiar names - John Jones, George Symes, James Heath,
Robert Melvin, Thomas Edward Brown, &c.
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