The scoundrels of the Lower Town have begun their clamour already, and
I should scarcely be surprised if the House should ask, when they
meet, by what authority I have cut a road without their permission.
The road begins at St. Giles and will end at the township of Shipton.
Yours most faithfully,
(Signed,) J. H. CRAIG.
(History of Canada, Christie, vol. VI., p. 128.)
Very different, and we hope more correct, views are now promulgated on
colonial matters from Powell Place.
If Sir James, wincing under bodily pain, could write angry letters, there
were occasions on which the "rank and fashion" of the city received from
him the sweetest epistles imaginable. The 10th of August of each year (his
birthday, perhaps) as he informs us in another letter, was sacred to
rustic enjoyment, conviviality and the exchange of usual courtesies, which
none knew better how to dispense than the sturdy old soldier.
The English traveller, John Lambert, thus notices it in his interesting
narrative in 1808: - "Sir James Craig resided in summer at a country house
about four or five miles from Quebec, and went to town every morning to
transact business. This residence is called Powell Place, and is
delightfully situated in a neat plantation on the border of the bank which
overlooks the St. Lawrence, not far from the spot where General Wolfe
landed and ascended to the heights of Abraham.
