Chief Justice Smith [251] Concerning House-Keeping, House-Furnishing Chateau Ceremonies, Etc, At Quebec In 1786, Wrote Thus In A Letter To His Wife:

QUEBEC, 10th Dec., 1786.

Mrs. Janet Smith, New York.

My dear Janet,

"Not a line from you yet! so that our approach to within 600 miles is less favourable to me hitherto, than when the ocean divided us by three thousand. It is the more vexatious, as we are daily visited by your Eastern neighbors, who, caring nothing for you, know nothing of you, and cannot tell me whether McJoen's or the Sopy Packet is arrived. If the latter is not over, there will be cause for ill boding respecting Mr. Lanaudiere, who, I imagine, left the channel with the wind that brought us out.

If the packet is on the way for Falmouth, get my letters into it for Mr. Raphbrigh, it contains a bill for L300 sterling to enable him to pay for what you order. You have no time to spare. A January mail often meets with easterly winds off the English coast, that blows for months, and we shall be mortified if you arrive before the necessary supplies, which, to be in time, must come in the ships that leave England in March or on the beginning of April.

I have found no house yet to my fancy. None large enough to be hired. We shall want a drawing-room, a dining or eating-room, my library, our bedroom, one for the girls, another for Hale and William, and another for your house-keeper and hair-dresser. Moore and another man servant will occupy the eight. And I doubt if there is such a house to be hired in Quebec. To say nothing of quarters for the lower servants who, I think must be negroes from New York as cheapest and least likely to find difficulties. My Thomas's wages are 24 guineas and with your three from England will put us to L100 sterling per annum.

If you bring blacks from New York with you, let them be such as you can depend upon. Our table will always want four attendants of decent appearance. The hurry of the public arrangements prevents me from writing, as I intended, to my friends on the other side of the water, nor even to Janet upon the great wish of my heart, tell her so, but she will know what can be done in time, for she cannot leave England till April or May, at any time before August to be here in good season. I have written to Vermont upon the subject of Moore Town and hear nothing to displease me, as yet, if no mischief has been done to our interests in that country, there will be peace, I believe; but of this more when I have their Governor's answer to my letters. They already ask favours and must first do justice.

Our winter is commenced and yet I was never less sensible of the frost. The stoves of Canada, in the passages, temper the air through all the house. I sit ordinarly by a common hearth which gives me the thermometer at 71 or 72, nearly summer heat. The close cariole and fur cap and cloak is a luxury only used on journeys. The cariole alone suffices in town. The Rout of last Thursday demonstrates this: 50 ladies in bright head dresses and not a lappet or frill discomposed. All English in the manner, except the ceremony of kissing which my Lord D. (Dorchester) engrossed all to himself. His aide-de-camp handed them through a room where he and I were posted to receive them. They had given two cheek kisses and were led away to the back rooms of the chateau, to which we repaired when the rush was over. The gentlemen came in at another door. Tea, cards, etc., that till 10 o'clock and the ceremony ended. I stole away at 9 and left your son to attend the beauty of the evening, a Mrs. Williams, wife to a major Williams and a daughter to Sir John Gibbons of Windford, a lady of genteel manners as well as birth. He did not find his lodging till near midnight. We had a dance that day at the Lt. Governor's. You must know General Hope. He was often at General Robertson's under the name of Col. Harry Hope, nephew to Lord Hopetown in Scotland, to Lord Darlington (by his mother's second marriage) in England. His table is in very genteel fashion. It reminds me that Mrs. Mallet must not forget all those little ornaments of plate, glass, etc., that belong to a dining-room. No water plates, the rooms don't require them, the plates being sufficiently heated by the stoves. But water dishes are necessary for soup and fish fricassees all in the shape of the proper dishes for such articles. Don't forget, among others, the silver gravy cups with double cavities, the larger for hot water. They are small hand ones, not unlike a tea pot. Mrs. Mallet will find these at all the great shops and particularly at Jones, in Cockspur street, near Charing Cross, where I bought my Mary's watch chain. William that understands Latin and French letters better than his native tongue, importunes my ordering a set of classical books, which he is welcome to, if you can purchase at N. Y. a small bill for about L15 sterling and enclose it in my letter to Mr. Ryland. If that is inconvenient to you stop my letter, and I will find other means to gratify his inclination. There is a very good library [252] here, and many private ones at my friends. How wretched your general affairs? if our Yankey informers speak the truth, multitudes are disposed to turn their heads from that draught, which I thought they would not long relish. Lord D. with the generosity and charity he always indulged, bids them welcome, disposed as he says to favour even the independant Whigs of America, above any other nation under heaven, for tho' no longer brethren, they are at least our cousins, branches from the same stock.

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